Employment Law This Week®: DOJ’s New Stance on Title VII, ACA Contraception Mandate, SCOTUS Hears Class-Action Waiver Arguments, RI’s Paid Sick Leave Policy
Supreme Court decisions are often the most challenging pieces of legal guidance to understand. They are rarely straightforward and usually contain so much analysis that it becomes hard to get to the bottom of what was...more
It’s hard to keep up with all the recent changes to labor and employment law. While the law always seems to evolve at a rapid pace, there have been an unprecedented number of changes for the past few years—and this past month...more
On July 8, 2020, the United States Supreme Court decided two cases addressing employers’ religious freedoms in very different contexts: one concerning whether religious school teachers could challenge adverse employment...more
After the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, in a 2-1 decision last December, declared the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA’s) individual health insurance mandate unconstitutional as a result of Congress’ elimination of...more
On July 8, 2020, in the consolidated cases of Little Sisters of the Poor Saints Peter and Paul Home v. Pennsylvania et al. and Donald J. Trump, President of the United States, et al. v. Pennsylvania et al., the U.S. Supreme...more
The Supreme Court just upheld two Trump-era rules expanding religious and moral exemptions to the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) contraceptive mandate. The July 8 decision in Little Sisters of the Poor v. Pennsylvania is just...more
In Little Sisters of the Poor Saints Peter and Paul Home v. Pennsylvania, the Supreme Court this week upheld regulations issued by the U.S. Departments of Treasury, Labor, and Health and Human Services (the Departments) that...more
On July 8, the U.S. Supreme Court issued two 7-2 decisions involving religious exemptions to federal employment and benefits laws....more
This week, the Supreme Court ruled that employers may exclude coverage for birth control from their health plans based upon moral or religious objections to contraception. ...more
Until this week, federal law required most insurance plans to cover the cost of birth control without a copay. However, the history behind this issue can be traced back much further....more
On July 8, 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Little Sisters of the Poor Saints Peter and Paul Home v. Pennsylvania and Trump v. Pennsylvania, holding that the Department of Health and Human Services validly created...more
On January 17, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments over the legality of the Affordable Care Act’s contraception mandate. This is the third case on the mandate to receive Supreme Court review....more
On December 18, 2019 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, in a 2-1 decision which the court revised on January 9, declared the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA’s) individual health insurance mandate unconstitutional as...more
On Friday afternoon, the Supreme Court of the United States granted certiorari in the following cases: Ford Motor Co. v. Montana Eighth District Court, No. 19-368; Ford Motor Co. v. Bandemer, No. 19-369: Whether the...more
The Affordable Care Act requires that employer-sponsored group medical insurance plans provide contraceptive coverage without cost sharing. Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services issued final...more
The US Supreme Court declined to review a recent Ninth Circuit decision, blocking the interim rules that exempted employers with religious or moral objections from providing birth control coverage required by the Affordable...more
We invite you to view Employment Law This Week® - a weekly rundown of the latest news in the field, brought to you by Epstein Becker Green. We look at the latest trends, important court decisions, and new developments that...more
In a recent Supreme Court case, Zubik v. Burwell, the justices vacated and remanded six federal appellate judgements on whether an accommodation (described below) for employers that object to providing contraceptive coverage...more
The Vulnerability of Healthcare Information - According to a report the Brookings Institute issued in May 2016, 23% of all data breaches occur in the healthcare industry. Nearly 90% of healthcare organizations had some...more
The U.S. Supreme Court has unanimously remanded a consolidated appeal of seven cases addressing the contraceptive-coverage “accommodation” for religious organizations under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to the Courts of...more
The Supreme Court in a unanimous opinion remanded Zubick v. Burwell — and the six cases consolidated with Zubick — back to the Courts of Appeals to rule on the contraceptive opt-out notice provisions. The Court directed the...more
The United States Supreme Court has declined to rule on the merits in a case brought by religious non-profit entities challenging the “religious accommodations” to the contraception mandate under the Affordable Care Act...more
Maryland becomes the first State to mandate over-the-counter contraceptive coverage; Missouri plans to increase Medicaid asset limitations by 500% by 2021; and HHS' final rule extends protections against sex discrimination to...more
The Supreme Court declined to rule on whether religiously affiliated nonprofits can be required to affirmatively “opt out” of providing contraceptive coverage to their employees, which would have triggered separate...more
Regardless of one’s preferred metaphor, the Supreme Court of the United States is adept at ducking, punting, and otherwise avoiding messy and socially divisive interpretive issues. Every once in a while, the parties even help...more