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
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
On Wednesday, July 8, 2020, the Supreme Court weighed in on whether religious employers are required to offer their employees health plans that include contraceptive coverage. In its opinion in Little Sisters of the Poor v....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
Key Cases - School States Claim Against State Superintendent for Unconstitutional Discrimination In Bethel Ministries, Inc. v. Salmon, No. SAG-19-01853, 2019 WL 6034988 (D. Md. Nov. 14, 2019), the court denied Maryland...more
The Affordable Care Act (the “ACA”) requires most health plans to provide first dollar coverage of FDA-approved contraception methods. Nearly nine years after the ACA’s enactment, this contraception mandate continues to be...more
A Pennsylvania federal judge granted Pennsylvania and New Jersey a nationwide preliminary injunction blocking two Trump administration final rules. The two final rules create exemptions for moral and religious objections to...more
On January 14, 2019, a district court in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania granted a nationwide preliminary injunction halting the application of final regulations governing religious and moral-based exemptions from the...more
Timely Topics - By Shannon B. Hartsfield - The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced on Jan. 18, 2018, the creation of a new division within its Office for Civil Rights (OCR). OCR is described as...more
Timely Topics - Serious data breaches have become routine in the United States, yet a recent survey shows that the majority of religious institutions do not have a full-time IT professional, have no system to detect a...more
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) just issued new rules which will limit the contraception coverage mandate covering employers under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The new rules, released Friday, expand the...more
Late last week, President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing federal agencies to look into exempting religious employers from the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) contraceptive mandate. Qualifying religious employers...more
Timely Topics - The final rule implementing Section 1557 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) was issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) on May...more
In Zubik v. Burwell, the justices vacated and remanded six federal appellate judgements on whether an accommodation (described below) for employers with religious objections to providing coverage for some or all contraception...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 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 Supreme Court of the United States issued decisions in six cases today: Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, No. 13-1339: The Fair Credit Reporting Act of 1970 (“FCRA”) imposes a number of requirements regarding the creation and...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
Zubik v. Burwell and several consolidated cases challenged a federal regulation requiring employers to cover certain contraceptives as part of their health plans unless they submit a form either to their insurer or to the...more