Court Opinion

ID: 8453045
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-11-05 02:22:06.016431+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:49:01.463406
License: Public Domain

ROVNER, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I would deny the appellants’ emergency request for temporary injunctive relief. I do not believe that the appellants have demonstrated either a reasonable likelihood of success on the merits of their appeal or irreparable harm in the absence of an injunction pending the resolution of the appeal.
Although the Kortes contend that complying with the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act’s insurance mandate violates their religious liberties, they are removed by multiple steps from the contraceptive services to which they object. *589First, it is the corporation rather than the Kortes individually which will pay for the insurance coverage. The corporate form may not be dispositive of the claims raised in this litigation, but neither is it meaningless: it does separate the Kortes, in some real measure, from the actions of their company. Second, the firm itself will not be paying directly for contraceptive services. Instead, their company will be required to purchase insurance which covers a wide range of health care services. It will be up to an employee and her physician whether she will avail herself of contraception, and if she does, it will be the insurer, rather than the Kortes, which will be funding those services. In the usual course of events, an employer is not involved in the delivery of medical care to its employee or even aware (by virtue of physician-patient privilege and statutory privacy protections) of what medical choices the employee is making in consultation with her physician; only the employee, her physician, and the insurer have knowledge of what services are being provided. What the Kortes wish to do is to preemptively declare that their company need not pay for insurance which covers particular types of medical care to which they object, despite the fact that neither the company nor its owners are involved with the decision to use particular services, nor do they write the checks to pay the providers for those services. See Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. v. Sebelius, No. 12-6294, Order at 7, 2012 WL 6930302 (10th Cir. Dec. 20, 2012) (quoting Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. v. Sebelius, 870 F.Supp.2d 1278, 1294 (W.D.Okla.2012) (“[T]he particular burden of which plaintiffs complain is that funds, which plaintiffs will contribute to a group health plan, might, after a series of independent decisions by health care providers and patients covered by [the corporate] plan, subsidize someone else’s participation in an activity that is condemned by plaintiffs’] religion. Such an indirect and attenuated relationship appears unlikely to establish the necessary ‘substantial burden.’ ”) (emphasis in original)), application for injunction denied by Circuit Justice, - U.S. -, 133 S.Ct. 641, 184 L.Ed.2d 448 (2012) (Sotomayor, J.). If an employer has this right, it is not clear to me what limits there might be on the ability to limit the insurance coverage the employer provides to its employees, for any number of medical services (or decisions to use particular medical services in particular circumstances) might be inconsistent with an employer’s (or its individual owners’) individual religious beliefs. In short, the Kortes have not shown that complying with the insurance mandate substantially burdens the free exercise of their religious rights, in violation of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, 42 U.S.C. § 2000bb-l.
I am also dubious of the notion that the Kortes will be irreparably harmed in the absence of a temporary injunction relieving them of the obligation to comply with the mandate to purchase insurance covering contraceptive services. First, the insurance plan currently in effect for their company’s non-union employees, which plan the company voluntarily entered into, already covers the relevant contraceptive services. The Kortes aver that they were unaware of this fact until shortly before they filed this litigation. The limited record before us does not reveal how long this has been going on, nor does it tell us what steps, if any, the Kortes took in the past to determine what services would be covered by the insurance their firm acquired for its non-union employees. I accept that their prior, inadvertent failure to act in compliance with their professed religious beliefs does not necessarily defeat the claims that they are pursuing in this litigation. See Grayson v. Schuler, 666 F.3d 450, 454 (7th Cir.2012) (“a sincere *590religious believer doesn’t forfeit his religious rights merely because he is not scrupulous in his observance”). But the fact that the Kortes’ company is already voluntarily (if inadvertently) paying for the type of insurance coverage to which they object — for at least the past year, and possibly longer — suggests that they will not be irreparably harmed by continuing to pay for the same coverage in compliance with the Affordable Care Act while this appeal is being resolved. Second, the regulations imposing the insurance mandate were issued in August 2011. As of that time, the Kortes knew that their company would be required to fund insurance coverage that included contraceptive services. Yet, they waited for more than a year to file this suit and seek a preliminary injunction relieving their firm of the duty to comply with the statute and the implementing regulations. If the insurance mandate poses as dire of a choice as the Kortes aver that it does (to act in violation of their religious beliefs, or pay a hefty fine for failing to comply with the statutory mandate), then they were obliged to take more prompt action than they did. Their belated discovery that their firm was already voluntarily providing to its employees coverage for services they claim they cannot countenance, coupled with their tardy decision to file suit seeking injunctive relief relieving their firm from the insurance mandate, suggests that they will not be irreparably harmed if they are denied preliminary relief while the merits of this appeal are being resolved.
I respectfully dissent.