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You are here: Home / Politics / Activist Judges! / Corporate person rights trampled by black-robed demons

Corporate person rights trampled by black-robed demons

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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.

Reader Interactions

59Comments

  2. 2.

    Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader

    The court, however, then went on to find that the corporations, Autocam, are not persons who can engage in “religious exercise.

    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?

  3. 3.

    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.

  7. 7.

    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.

  9. 9.

    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.

  10. 10.

    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.

  11. 11.

    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.

  12. 12.

    El Caganer

    Maybe it’s time for the corporations to stop tolerating this shit and start an Occupy Humanity movement.

  14. 14.

    Violet

    The court, however, then went on to find that the corporations, Autocam, are not persons who can engage in “religious exercise.”

    More of this please. More court cases challenging the personhood of corporations. Get it in law.

  15. 15.

    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.

  16. 16.

    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

  19. 19.

    Poopyman

    @Tommy:

    She is full-longed two day a week.. Ponder that for a few seconds.

    Ponder it? I’m trying to figure out what the hell you just said!

  20. 20.

    TooManyJens

    From the decision:

    The Kennedys claim that the same religious beliefs that motivate them to provide Autocam employees with health coverage also limit the scope of the coverage they are able to provide. They accept their church’s teaching that artificial contraception and sterilization are immoral. They also believe that they become morally responsible for the use of contraception by others when they “directly pay for the purchase of drugs and services . . . in violation of [their] beliefs.” This teaching is sometimes referred to by the plaintiffs as “material cooperation.” In applying these teachings to their ownership and operation of Autocam, the Kennedys believe that they cannot direct their closely held company’s health insurance plan to “provide, fund, or participate in health care insurance that covers artificial contraception, including abortifacient contraception, sterilization, and related education and counseling.” The plaintiffs “do not seek to control what an employee or his or her dependents do with the wages and healthcare dollars” they provide because they do not consider themselves morally responsible for the choices of employees in the way plaintiffs believe they are responsible when they provide insurance coverage for services they find morally objectionable.

    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.

  22. 22.

    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’.

  28. 28.

    Higgs Boson's Mate

    I’ll believe that corporations are people the second that one gets its ass shot off in a foreign war.

  30. 30.

    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.

  31. 31.

    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!

  32. 32.

    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).

  33. 33.

    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.

  35. 35.

    burnspbesq

    @fuckwit:

    I expect they’ll say fuck it and deny cert, and let the 6th’s decision stand.

    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.

  36. 36.

    Roger Moore

    @Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader:

    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?

    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.

  39. 39.

    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.

  40. 40.

    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.

  43. 43.

    TooManyJens

    @Trollhattan:

    Speaking of, is there any chance at all Pope Frank will finally get the church outta the ninteentheighteenthseventeenthsixteenth century WRT contraception.

    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.

  44. 44.

    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.)

  45. 45.

    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?

  46. 46.

    boatboy_srq

    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.

    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.

  49. 49.

    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.”

  50. 50.

    Julia Grey

    will force them to choose between violating the teachings of their church and suffering significant financial harm.

    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?

  51. 51.

    TooManyJens

    @Julia Grey:

    (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.)

    Nope. Covering contraception is cost effective.

  52. 52.

    Sloegin

    How will corporations find God’s grace then? Do we really want a heavenly reward with no Starbucks and Applebees?

  55. 55.

    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.

  56. 56.

    MyNameIsNotRelevant

    I read the decision and it actually does run counter to Supreme Court precedent whether we like it or not.

  57. 57.

    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!

  59. 59.

    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.

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