On November 22, 2013, a group of nonprofit religious organizations filed this lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the Administrative Procedure Act and the First Amendment against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The plaintiff asked the court for an exception to the Affordable Care Act (ACA) mandate requiring employers to provide health insurance coverage of contraception. Specifically, the plaintiff claimed that providing insurance coverage of contraception, even with the ACA's accommodation for religious organizations, would violate the organization's deeply held religious beliefs.
On November 26, 2013, the plaintiffs filed a motion for a preliminary injunction. On December 11, 2013, the defendant filed a motion to dismiss, or, alternatively, for summary judgment. On December 26, 2013, the district court (Judge Todd J. Campbell) denied a preliminary injunction on the grounds that the plaintiffs were unlikely to succeed in their lawsuit. The same day, the plaintiff filed an appeal with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit (No. 13-6640) and filed a separate motion for injunctive relief pending appeal. On December 27, 2013, the district court denied this relief pending the appeal.
On December 31, 2013, the Court of Appeals granted plaintiff's motion for emergency injunctive relief. On January 13, 2014, the Court of Appeals granted defendant's motion to consolidate this appeal with
Michigan Catholic Conference v. Sebelius (No. 13-2723).
Oral argument occurred on May 8, 2014, before Circuit Judges Karen Nelson Moore and John M. Rogers, and District Judge John Nixon (sitting by designation). On June 11, 2014, in an opinion by Judge Moore, the Sixth Circuit affirmed the district judge's denial of a preliminary injunction, for all plaintiffs. Organizations exempt from the contraception mandate faced no burden on exercise of their religion, and they were therefore unlikely to succeed in proving a violation of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. And organizations eligible to receive an "accommodation" under the law needed only to provide a "self-certification" that documented that they had a religious objection. This self-certification did not constitute an unlawful religious burden, Judge Moore explained. For similar reasons, the law did not violate the First Amendment's Free Speech, Free Exercise, or Establishment Clauses.
On August 21, 2015, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the district court’s decision denying preliminary injunctive relief to the plaintiffs on all claims. The plaintiffs filed a petition for a writ of certiorari on March 9, 2016. On May 26, 2016 the Supreme Court granted the petition, vacated the Sixth Circuit's ruling, and remanded the case back to the lower court in light of
Zubik v. Burwell (See
FA-PA-0016 in this Clearinghouse). On November 30, 2016, the case was reassigned to Judge Trauger following Judge Todd Campbell’s retirement.
Following the
Zubik decision, the Departments of Health and Human Services, Labor, and Treasury adopted new rules on October 6, 2017 that allowed for religious and moral objections to providing contraceptives under the ACA. As a result, on January 28, 2018 the plaintiffs voluntarily dismissed their lawsuit. The case is now closed.
Mallory Jones - 03/31/2014
- 06/12/2014
MJ Koo - 03/14/2017
Carter Powers Beggs - 11/13/2019
compress summary
