Little Sisters of the Poor Saints Peter and Paul Home v. Pennsylvania | |
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Argued May 6, 2020 Decided July 8, 2020 | |
Full case name | Little Sisters of the Poor Saints Peter and Paul Home v. Pennsylvania, et al. Donald J. Trump, President of the United States, et al. v. Pennsylvania, et al. |
Docket nos. | 19-431 19-454 |
Citations | 591 U.S. ___ (more) 140 S. Ct. 2367 |
Case history | |
Prior |
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Holding | |
The Departments had the authority under the ACA to promulgate the religious and moral exemptions. The rules promulgating the exemptions are free from procedural defects. | |
Court membership | |
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Case opinions | |
Majority | Thomas, joined by Roberts, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh |
Concurrence | Alito, joined by Gorsuch |
Concurrence | Kagan (in judgment), joined by Breyer |
Dissent | Ginsburg, joined by Sotomayor |
Little Sisters of the Poor Saints Peter and Paul Home v. Pennsylvania, 591 U.S. ___ (2020), was a United States Supreme Court case involving ongoing conflicts between the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) over the ACA's contraceptive mandate. The ACA exempts nonprofit religious organizations from complying with the mandate, to which for-profit religious organizations objected.
The case is a result of prior court actions in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc.,[1] in 2014, and Zubik v. Burwell,[2] in 2016, which left the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to promulgate new regulations on the mandate. President Donald Trump issued an Executive Order to the HHS to bypass the traditional regulatory process, leading HHS to devise new rules in late 2017 to give for-profit groups exemptions for religious or moral objections to the mandate. Several states sued the federal government, and multiple Circuit Courts placed injunctions on the new rules as arbitrary and capricious and required by neither the ACA or the RFRA, violating the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). This case was a consolidation of two appeals from the injunction placed by the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. The Supreme Court ruled on July 8, 2020, in a 7–2 decision that the new rules were valid, as the associated departments had the authority to promulgate the exemptions, and that the process to put the rules in place did not violate the APA.