Autocam is probably devastated by this decision:
A Cincinnati-based federal appeals court today sided with the Obama administration in dismissing a Michigan lawsuit by a for-profit corporation challenging a health-care law mandate that employers’ insurance coverage must include contraception for workers.
Autocam Corp. and Autocam Medical, for-profit companies that manufacture goods for the auto and medical industries, challenged the constitutionality of the mandate under the Affordable Care Act. A Roman Catholic family by the name of Kennedy, which holds a controlling interest in the companies, argued unsuccessfully that the requirement that such coverage be provided to female employees will force them to choose between violating the teachings of their church and suffering significant financial harm.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a decision from U.S. District Court in Grand Rapids, Mich. rejecting Autocam’s motion for a preliminary injunction preventing enforcement of that provision of the health-care law. It sent the case back to the lower court with orders to dismiss the challenges by both the family and the corporations.
Other courts have decided differently in other challenges so the issue may eventually work its way up to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The court ruled that the Kennedy family cannot use a private, for-profit, secular corporation to assert their own religious views.
The court, however, then went on to find that the corporations, Autocam, are not persons who can engage in “religious exercise.”
Judge Gibbons was appointed to the bench in 2002 by then Republican President George W. Bush. Also sitting on the panel were Circuit Judge Jane Branstetter Stranch, a 2010 Democratic appointee by President Obama, and U.S. District Judge Denise Page Hood, of Michigan, appointed in 1994 by then Democratic President Bill Clinton.
JCJ
Corporations are people, my friend.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
So lemme see if I understand this. Corporations have all the protections offered by the first amendment in regards to purchasing elections but don’t have any of the protections offered by the first amendment in regards to free expression of their religion?
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
If I was a corporation, I’d be seriously considering watering the tree of liberty right now with the blood of stockholders.
handy
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader:
This was handed down by the US 6th. It hasn’t made its way to the Roberts court. Stay tuned.
chopper
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader:
don’t get me started on a corporation’s right to keep and bear arms.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader: Dialectics.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
@handy: I still think corporations should at least put together a revolution study group in preparation of the fourth quarter.
Kay
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader:
cleek
weird.
normally, lawyers warn corporate owners to avoid linking their personal lives with the corporation because doing so opens the owners up to having to accept liability for anything the corporation does, aka “Piercing the corporate veil“.
in this case, they lifted the veil, bent over and showed their asses.
fuckwit
This is exciting and dangerous. If it goes to SCOTUS, it could either carve a big chunk out of corporate personhoood– possibly even open the door to reversing Citizens United or Southern Pacific vs. Santa Clara…. or it could further entrench corporate personhood in the law.
But, since SCOTUS has already handled ACA, I expect they’ll say fuck it and deny cert, and let the 6th’s decision stand.
Villago Delenda Est
I am so tired of these religious asswipes demanding that they have the right impose their fucking barbaric beliefs on everyone around them.
El Caganer
Maybe it’s time for the corporations to stop tolerating this shit and start an Occupy Humanity movement.
balconesfault
I wonder if the robots on an assembly line can be programmed with a “faith” chip?
Violet
More of this please. More court cases challenging the personhood of corporations. Get it in law.
Tommy
My brother’s wife works at TRANSCOM (US Transportation Command).. They control every truck, ship, airplane, you name it. How they get our troops food or bullets. Tampons and a lot of other shit, the list of needs is long. She is full-longed two day a week.. Ponder that for a few seconds.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
@Kay: Oh Kay! You know I am dumb as a sack of banhammers but make up for it by being extra delightful
Paul in KY
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader: Please pray for the corporations. They can’t pray for you…
balconesfault
@Tommy: She is full-longed two day a week.. Ponder that for a few seconds.
Hard to ponder what I don’t understand.
Poopyman
@Tommy:
Ponder it? I’m trying to figure out what the hell you just said!
TooManyJens
From the decision:
1. They only provide health coverage because their religion tells them to? What the hell happens when some company claims that because Jesus tells them to pay a decent wage, they get to decide how employees use that too?
2. Paying premiums to an insurance company which then pays for contraceptive services is not “directly pay[ing] for the purchase of drugs and services.”
3. The “abortifacient contraception” they refer to isn’t.
4. That last sentence is gobbledygook. They absolutely do seek to control what employees and dependents do with their health care dollars. They are not morally responsible for whether or not employees choose to use their own insurance coverage in a way that does not conform to Catholic belief, any more than they are morally responsible for whether or not employees use their paychecks that way.
TooManyJens
@Tommy:
Furloughed?
Paul in KY
@fuckwit: I think ‘dread’ is a better descriptor than ‘dangerous’ when talking about some facet of law that was theoretically settled 90 years ago & now will go before Justice ‘Sneaky John’.
Kay
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader:
This is when corporate law doctrine matters most :)
They won’t abandon it. Don’t ask them to.
Paul in KY
@Tommy: Can you give me a civilian definition of this phrase: ‘She is full-longed two day a week’.
Thanks!
Amir Khalid
I take it the Autocam Kennedys of Ohio are not related to those other, political Kennedys?
Paul in KY
@TooManyJens: The poor dears…I will pray for them (looking up Hyborean phrases used to pray to Crhulhu to smite someone).
TooManyJens
@Amir Khalid: Probably not. There are a lot of Kennedys in this country.
Higgs Boson's Mate
I’ll believe that corporations are people the second that one gets its ass shot off in a foreign war.
balconesfault
@TooManyJens: More likely, it seems, related to the Justice Kennedy on the Supreme Court, at least by temperament.
mai naem(mobile)
Anybody want to bet that this Kennedy family has some of those convenient abortions for good white catholic girls in it’s history. The kind where the discrete doctor in Chicago took care of that quite inconvenient problem circa 1961.
WereBear
Of course, right wing whackjobs (but I repeat myself) are completely unaware that they are undermining laws that exist to protect the humans in the corporation from personal liability.
Boomerangs of sweet sweet Schadenfreude!
kindness
As a result of this ruling, Autocam’s Corporate personhood just suffered an embarrassing case of limp dickism. Let us hope there are no physicians willing to treat Autocam’s shamed personhood with little blue pills (and I don’t mean 10mg Valium).
stinger
I’ve never worked for Autocam, thank FSM, but with every company I have worked for, I’ve paid a portion of the insurance premium. Comes right out of my paycheck. It’s unlikely the Kennedy companies are picking up the entire premium.
Besides, employer-sponsored health insurance was originally provided in the first place as an alternative to raising wages. So the Autocam employees (and most other US workers) are paying for their health coverage twice.
And third or C, I’d be willing to bet that one or more members of the Autocam Kennedy family, like many American Catholics, use birth control. Okay for me, but not for thee.
Anna in PDX
@Villago Delenda Est: YES. How do their rights trump their employees’?
burnspbesq
@fuckwit:
The Tenth Circuit has already signaled that it’s going to go the other way when it vacated the District Court decision denying a preliminary injunction in Hobby Lobby.
For better or worse, you’ll have your circuit split soon enough.
Roger Moore
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader:
Yes, that’s right. If corporations didn’t have freedom of speech and freedom of the press, Congress could shut down any newspaper, TV station, etc. they didn’t like without any First Amendment problems. Rather than accept that, the Supreme Court has protected their right to free expression, which unfortunately includes paying for political ads. I think it was probably possible to separate the two, but there are very good reasons why the First Amendment needs to extend to corporate speech. OTOH, a secular corporation (i.e. one that isn’t officially a religious non-profit) doesn’t have any obvious right to free exercise of religion, so the judges are refusing to protect them under that aspect of the First Amendment. I suspect that secular corporations would be protected under the Establishment Clause if Congress tried to force them to do something explicitly religious.
Citizen_X
@TooManyJens:
Well! Isn’t that fucking special?
burnspbesq
Full text of opinion (PDF)
Trollhattan
@Paul in KY:
Dunno, but it sounds kinda dirty.
Speaking of, is there any chance at all Pope Frank will finally get the church outta the
ninteentheighteenthseventeenthsixteenth century WRT contraception. IIRC Paul VI was working towards just that before he de-poped.WereBear
Funny/strange: there is very little even remotely concerning contraception in the whole of the Bible, but there’s a fellow in there who talks a LOT about how the rich should take care of the poor.
But I guess he’s not as important as, say, the Pope.
Villago Delenda Est
@WereBear:
That guy is the son of Jehovah, not the son of Mammon, who is the true deity who holds sway over this country.
Tommy
@Paul in KY: I don’t have a better story/word. I am a hippie liberal. I don’t always like she works at a military base, but my dad did.
TooManyJens
@Trollhattan:
I’d be surprised if he actually changed the teaching. What he might conceivably (no pun intended) do is de-emphasize it, and stop lobbying governmental bodies on the subject. He doesn’t seem to be particularly interested in being a culture warrior.
PurpleGirl
@burnspbesq: Isn’t it true that corporate personhood was not the decision in Southern Pacific vs. Santa Clara but was put into the headnotes of the publication of the case? It gained currency because people tended to read the headnotes but not the whole decision.
(I know that the Roberts court ruled for corporate personhood in Citizens’ United.)
PurpleGirl
@Tommy: That still doesn’t explain that sentence. Did you mean “she works a on a military base and the company furloughed her for two days a week”. Does that means she’s now a part-time employee who works three days a week?
boatboy_srq
emphasis added.
… and if that had been a Muslim business making that claim you can bet the Reichwing wouldn’t have had anything to say.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Tommy: I think autocorrect ate the word you meant to use and vomited out nonsense.
Betsy
@cleek: noice!
burnspbesq
@PurpleGirl:
More or less. My response to people who think Southern Pacific is a big deal is typically along the lines of “Go read Blackstone. Corporations were recognized as juridical persons by the English common law at least as far back as the early 17th Century.”
Julia Grey
Oh my goodness me. They can’t decide between GOD and MAMMON?
Solve your “moral” dilemma by divesting yourself of some of your shares of stock, Kennedy family. If those teachings are so very, very important to you, go ahead and take that “significant financial harm” instead of violating your religion. Think of it as an offering to the Almighty, a sacrifice for the sake of your immortal soul.
(I scare quote “moral” because I suspect that what they’re really after is to be able to buy cheaper insurance for their employees. A policy that doesn’t provide free contraception won’t be as expensive.)
Any word on whether their insurance has covered BC in the past, or if they are also going to eliminate coverage for in vitro fertilization or vigor-all for couples past childbearing age?
TooManyJens
@Julia Grey:
Nope. Covering contraception is cost effective.
Sloegin
How will corporations find God’s grace then? Do we really want a heavenly reward with no Starbucks and Applebees?
stinger
@Julia Grey: “Oh my goodness me. They can’t decide between GOD and MAMMON?”
They want both.
xenos
@TooManyJens: Furloughed for two furlongs, in this case.
xenos
@burnspbesq: The general public does not understand corporate personhood in that sense. The question is whether corporations deserve full due process rights like a natural person. They should not have such rights, because limited liability corporations had only partial personhood, whether under Blackstone’s common-law analysis or any of a number of statutes that place special obligations on corporations that do not apply to natural persons.
Then you get to the whole issue about how Santa Clara is dicta that got reported as a holding of the case, and then by magic became law through repeated if erroneous citation. So it is most certainly not as simple a matter as you suggest.
MyNameIsNotRelevant
I read the decision and it actually does run counter to Supreme Court precedent whether we like it or not.
J R in WV
@Tommy:
I don’t even know what that is: “Full-longed two days a week!” It doesn’t lend itself to any inference – unless it means 2 24 hour shifts every week, on top of a regular 40 hour shift?
Tom, what are you telling us here? Thnx
Years ago I requested a federal grant in services rather than funding, because there was a rumor that we would be losing contractors. They wanted to use up the grant at a rate of $178/hour for a not-very-competent software developer.
I told them that was absurd, refused to allow that rate, and got them down to a still-absurd $138/hour. He worked on site in or near DC, and when he visited our location to show us his crappy code, he was on the payroll while he traveled! So any of those guys can afford a yacht. None of this has anything to do with Tommy’s relative-in-law as far as I know, but I still love to tell the story at every opportunity. So there!
Sad_Dem
@cleek: Indeed. Corporations have been asking courts to have their cake and eat it too.
West of the Cascades
Thank God the corporation’s visits to a mental health specialist to help deal with this traumatic decision will be covered under Obamacare.