On June 28, 2013, the United States Department of Health and Human Services (the Health Department) issued a final rule concerning the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (the Mandate). The regulations of the final rule required health insurance plans to provide coverage of contraception and abortifacients, with an exemption for health plans offered by churches and their integrated auxiliaries.
The regulations of the Mandate also provide an accommodation for health plans by certain qualified religious organizations, but it still resulted in the organization's provision of coverage for abortion-inducing products, contraception, sterilization, and related counseling. Such an organization was required to execute a self-certification of its non-profit, religious status as well as its opposition to coverage of contraceptive services. The organization was further required to provide the self-certification to its insurance company or, if self-insured, to a third party administrator (TPA). The insurance company or TPA was then automatically required to provide or arrange payments for contraceptive services for the organization's employees and participants of the plan.
The Diocese of Greensburg (the Diocese), operated a self-insured health plan through a charitable trust (the Trust), and the trust provided coverage to diocesan-entities, including a non-profit corporation (the Corporation) and a Catholic school (the School), both affiliated with the Diocese. While the Diocese was exempt from compliance with the Mandate, the Corporation and the School were only accommodated. Both the Bishop and the Diocese were thus required to facilitate coverage of abortifacients, contraception, sterilization, and related education and counseling through their participation in the operation of the Trust under the self-certification provision, and they argued that this was contrary to their sincerely held religious beliefs.
In a case with similar facts,
Zubik v. Sebelius, 13-cv-1459, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 165922 (W.D. Pa. Nov. 21, 2013), the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania granted the Bishops, Dioceses, and their affiliates a permanent injunction that enjoined the federal government from applying or enforcing the requirements under the Mandate. The Diocese reached out to the government for an extension to itself and its affiliated entities, but the government refused to agree to an injunction.
On May 27, 2014, the Diocese, along with its Bishop, the Corporation and the School, filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the U.S. Department of Labor and the U.S. Department of Treasury, seeking declaratory and injunctive relief as well as attorneys' fees under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), 5 U.S.C. §§ 551, Declaratory Judgment Act, 28 U.S.C. § 2201, and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), 42 U.S.C. § 2000bb-1. The plaintiffs claimed that the Mandate substantially burdened the plaintiffs' religious beliefs and threatened the plaintiffs with imminent injury that should be remedied by a court, in violation of RFRA, APA and the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
The defendants conceded that, aside from their "self-insured church plan" argument in the present case, their arguments were otherwise identical to those made in
Persico v. Sebelius, 13-cv-303 and
Zubik II. The defendants claimed that the plaintiffs failed to establish injury in fact, because they could have offered a self-insured church plan to their employees and the federal government would have no regulatory authority to require TPAs of self-insured church plans to provide contraceptive services for the participants.
On June 20, 2014, Judge Arthur J. Schwab, for the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania, issued a memorandum opinion and an order, granting the plaintiffs a preliminary injunction enjoining the federal government from enforcing the Mandate's requirements against the plaintiffs. Judge Schwab's opinion relied on the same reasoning as that in
Persico and
Zubik. The Court declined to address the "self-insured church plan" contention raised by the defendants for lack of facts. The defendants appealed the order to the Third Circuit.
The Court granted the plaintiffs' motion for a permanent injunction on Aug. 20, 2014, rejecting the defendants' "self-insured church plan" argument.
On Oct. 3, 2014, the defendants appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, and the record for the purposes of the appeal was complete by Nov. 4, 2014.
On Oct. 19, 2017, the case was dismissed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit without cost to either party.
Emma Bao - 11/12/2014
Elizabeth Greiter - 01/06/2018
compress summary
