Burwell v Hobby Lobby Legal Framework Case Brief Have to write a case brief for my religion and politics class only has to be one page no longer then that

Burwell v Hobby Lobby Legal Framework Case Brief Have to write a case brief for my religion and politics class only has to be one page no longer then that Burwell V Hobby Lobby The legal framework has to be from the Illinois RFRAAll put all the attachments needed to write the case and how is it should look and all the info needed not too hard HUMAN RIGHTS
Illinios Religious Freedom Restoration Act (1998)
Sec. 1. Short title.
This Act may be cited as the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
Sec. 10. Findings and purposes.
(a) The General Assembly finds the following:
(1) The free exercise of religion is an inherent, fundamental, and
inalienable right secured by Article I, Section 3 of the Constitution of the
State of Illinois.
2) Laws “neutral” toward religion, as well as laws intended to interfere
with the exercise of religion, may burden the exercise of religion.
(3) Government should not substantially burden the exercise of religion
without compelling justification.
(4) In Employment Division v. Smith, the Supreme Court virtually
eliminated the requirement under the First Amendment to the United
States Constitution that government justify burdens on the exercise of
religion imposed by laws neutral toward religion.
(5) In City of Boerne v. P. F. Flores, the Supreme Court held that an Act
passed by Congress to address the matter of burdens placed on the
exercise of religion infringed on the legislative powers reserved to the
states under the Constitution of the United States.
(6) The compelling interest test, as set forth in Wisconsin v. Yoder (1972),
and Sherbert v. Verner (1963), is a workable test for striking sensible
balances between religious liberty and competing governmental interests.
(b) The purposes of this Act are as follows:
(1) To restore the compelling interest test as set forth in Wisconsin v. Yoder
(1972), and Sherbert v. Verner (1963), and to guarantee that a test of
compelling governmental interest will be imposed on all State and local …
laws, ordinances, policies, procedures, practices, and governmental
actions in all cases in which the free exercise of religion is substantially
burdened.
Illinois RFRA
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(2) To provide a claim or defense to persons whose exercise of religion is
substantially burdened by government.
Sec. 15. Free exercise of religion protected.
Government may not substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion, even if
the burden results from a rule of general applicability, unless it demonstrates
that application of the burden to the person (i) is in furtherance of a compelling
governmental interest and (ii) is the least restrictive means of furthering that
compelling governmental interest.
Sec. 99. Effective date.
This Act takes effect on July 1, 1998.
Illinois RFRA
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REL 224: Religion and Politics in the US: Religion and Laws
WRITING A CASE BRIEF
The purpose of the case brief is to help you to work through a court opinion, putting aside
what is background information and keeping only what is most important. The whole
point of a case brief is to help you to understand and remember the case.
The case brief helps you to remember the cases you read for in-class discussion of the
case, for preparing for exams, and for becoming well-versed, fluent and confident in your
ability to speak intelligently about contemporary issues involving religion and law.
The following are some of the typical features included in a case brief that you should
include in your briefs. Use these headings in your brief. Your case brief should be no
longer than 1 page, single-spaced, 12 point font size.
CASE NAME
Most cases have a name made up of the names of two (or more) parties.
ESSENTIAL FACTS
List in bullet-point format the essential facts of the case that are needed to
understand the issues. The opinion of the court will usually include more facts
than are needed to understand the case. Be selective and concise. Include ONLY
those facts that are needed to understanding the case.
LEGAL ISSUE
Present the specific legal issue that the court is trying to answer in the case.
Construct the legal issue in the form of a question that blends the relevant
constitutional provision or statute with the relevant facts, together in a
coherent whole.
HOLDING
Give a “Yes” or “No” summary answer that the court gave to the legal issue?
REASONING OF THE COURT
The Legal Test or Framework:
Begin by telling what legal framework the court applied. Tell precisely what
meaning the court gave to the relevant constitutional provision or statute. Tell
how the court understood the constitutional provision or statute that it decided to
apply. Give the element of the test that the court is going to crank the facts
through.
The Application of the Legal Test to the Facts:
Then tell how the court applied the legal test or framework to the facts of the case:
What facts did the court find important? How did the court interpret and construe
Writing a Case Brief
Page 1 of 2
the facts? What arguments did the court find important? How did the court
interpret history?
RELIGIOUS STUDIES and PUBLIC POLICY QUESTIONS
a) What unanswered question(s) concerning religion does this opinion raise for
you?
b) What unanswered question(s) concerning public policy does this opinion raise
for you?
RIGHTLY OR WRONGLY DECIDED?
State, in one sentence, whether you think the case was rightly or wrongly
decided, giving a legal reason for your decision.
CONCURRING OPINION(S)
A concurring opinion is an opinion written by one or more judges hearing a case
that agrees with the decision or holding of the majority of the judges who heard
the case, but offers different reasons for reaching the same decision. Are there
any concurring opinions? If so, what different insights do they offer?
DISSENTING OPINION(S)
A dissenting opinion is an explicit disagreement with the decision or holding of
the majority of the judges hearing a case. Therefore, it is the losing opinion.
However, dissenting opinions can provide some insights into different points of
view and trends in the law. Are there any dissenting opinions? If so, what
different insights do they offer? What different point of view do they express?
Writing a Case Brief
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SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED
STATES
SYLVIA BURWELL, SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND
HUMAN SERVICES, et al., PETITIONERS
v.
HOBBY LOBBY STORES, INC., et al.
and
CONESTOGA WOOD SPECIALTIES
CORPORATION et al., PETITIONERS
v.
SYLVIA BURWELL, SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND
HUMAN SERVICES, et al.
June 30, 2014
Justice Alito delivered the opinion of the Court.
We must decide in these cases whether the Religious
Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (RFRA), permits the
United States Department of Health and Human Services
(HHS) to demand that three closely held corporations
provide health insurance coverage for methods of
contraception that violate the sincerely held religious
beliefs of the companies’ owners.
***
I
A
Congress enacted RFRA in 1993 in order to provide
very broad protection for religious liberty. RFRA’s
enactment came three years after this Court’s decision in
Employment Div., Dept. of Human Resources of Ore. v.
Smith, which largely repudiated the method of analyzing
free-exercise claims that had been used in cases like
Sherbert v. Verner (1963), and Wisconsin v. Yoder (1972).
In determining whether challenged government actions
violated the Free Exercise Clause of the First
Amendment, those decisions used a balancing test that
took into account whether the challenged action imposed
a substantial burden on the practice of religion, and if it
did, whether it was needed to serve a compelling
government interest. Applying this test, the Court held in
Sherbert that an employee who was fired for refusing to
work on her Sabbath could not be denied unemployment
benefits. And in Yoder, the Court held that Amish
children could not be required to comply with a state law
demanding that they remain in school until the age of 16
even though their religion required them to focus on
uniquely Amish values and beliefs during their
formative adolescent years.
In Smith, however, the Court rejected “the balancing
test set forth in Sherbert.” Smith concerned two members
of the Native American Church who were fired for
ingesting peyote for sacramental purposes. When they
sought unemployment benefits, the State of Oregon
rejected their claims on the ground that consumption of
peyote was a crime, but the Oregon Supreme Court,
applying the Sherbert test, held that the denial of benefits
violated the Free Exercise Clause.
This Court then reversed, observing that use of the
Sherbert test whenever a person objected on religious
grounds to the enforcement of a generally applicable law
“would open the prospect of constitutionally required
religious exemptions from civic obligations of almost
every conceivable kind.” The Court therefore held that,
under the First Amendment, “neutral, generally
applicable laws may be applied to religious practices
even when not supported by a compelling governmental
interest.” City of Boerne v. Flores (1997).
Congress responded to Smith by enacting RFRA.
“[L]aws [that are] ‘neutral’ toward religion,” Congress
found, “may burden religious exercise as surely as laws
intended to interfere with religious exercise.” . In order to
ensure broad protection for religious liberty, RFRA
provides that “Government shall not substantially
burden a person’s exercise of religion even if the burden
results from a rule of general applicability.” If the
Government substantially burdens a person’s exercise of
religion, under the Act that person is entitled to an
exemption from the rule unless the Government
“demonstrates that application of the burden to the
person—(1) is in furtherance of a compelling
governmental interest; and (2) is the least restrictive
means of furthering that compelling governmental
interest.”
As enacted in 1993, RFRA applied to both the Federal
Government and the States . . . . In City of Boerne,
however, we held that Congress had overstepped its . . .
authority . . . .
Following our decision in City of Boerne, Congress
passed the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized
Persons Act of 2000 (RLUIPA). That statute, enacted
under Congress’s Commerce and Spending Clause
powers, imposes the same general test as RFRA but on a
more limited category of governmental actions. See
Cutter v. Wilkinson (2005). And, what is most relevant
for present purposes, RLUIPA amended RFRA’s
definition of the “exercise of religion.” Before RLUIPA,
RFRA’s definition made reference to the First
Amendment (defining “exercise of religion” as “the
exercise of religion under the First Amendment”). In
RLUIPA, in an obvious effort to effect a complete
separation from First Amendment case law, Congress
deleted the reference to the First Amendment and
defined the “exercise of religion” to include “any exercise
of religion, whether or not compelled by, or central to, a
system of religious belief.” And Congress mandated that
this concept “be construed in favor of a broad protection
of religious exercise, to the maximum extent permitted
by the terms of this chapter and the Constitution.”
B
At issue in these cases are HHS regulations
promulgated under the Patient Protection and
Affordable Care Act of 2010 (ACA). ACA generally
requires employers with 50 or more full-time employees
to offer “a group health plan or group health insurance
coverage” that provides “minimum essential coverage.”
Any covered employer that does not provide such
coverage must pay a substantial price. Specifically, if a
covered employer provides group health insurance but
its plan fails to comply with ACA’s group-health-plan
requirements, the employer may be required to pay $100
per day for each affected “individual.” And if the
employer decides to stop providing health insurance
altogether and at least one full-time employee enrolls in a
health plan and qualifies for a subsidy on one of the
government-run ACA exchanges, the employer must pay
$2,000 per year for each of its full-time employees.
Unless an exception applies, ACA requires an
employer’s group health plan or group-health-insurance
coverage to furnish “preventive care and screenings” for
women without “any cost sharing requirements.”
Congress itself, however, did not specify what types of
preventive care must be covered. Instead, Congress
authorized the Health Resources and Services
Administration (HRSA), a component of HHS, to make
that important and sensitive decision. The HRSA in turn
consulted the Institute of Medicine, a nonprofit group of
volunteer advisers, in determining which preventive
services to require.
In August 2011, based on the Institute’s
recommendations, the HRSA promulgated the Women’s
Preventive Services Guidelines. The Guidelines provide
that nonexempt employers are generally required to
provide “coverage, without cost sharing” for “[a]ll Food
and Drug Ad-ministration [(FDA)] approved
contraceptive methods, sterilization procedures, and
patient education and counseling.” Although many of
the required, FDA-approved methods of contraception
work by preventing the fertilization of an egg, four of
those methods (those specifically at issue in these cases)
may have the effect of preventing an already fertilized
egg from developing any further by inhibiting its
attachment to the uterus.
HHS also authorized the HRSA to establish
exemptions from the contraceptive mandate for
“religious employers.” That category encompasses
“churches, their integrated auxiliaries, and conventions
or associations of churches,” as well as “the exclusively
religious activities of any religious order.” In its
Guidelines, HRSA exempted these organizations from
the requirement to cover contraceptive services.
In addition, HHS has effectively exempted certain
religious nonprofit organizations, described under HHS
regulations as “eligible organizations,” from the
contraceptive mandate. An “eligible organization” means
a nonprofit organization that “holds itself out as a
religious organization” and “opposes providing coverage
for some or all of any contraceptive services required to
be covered . . . on account of religious objections.” To
qualify for this accommodation, an employer must
certify that it is such an organization. When a grouphealth-insurance issuer receives notice that one of its
clients has invoked this provision, the issuer must then
exclude contraceptive coverage from the employer’s plan
and provide separate payments for contraceptive services
for plan participants without imposing any cost-sharing
requirements on the eligible organization, its insurance
plan, or its employee beneficiaries. Although this
procedure requires the issuer to bear the cost of these
services, HHS has determined that this obligation will
not impose any net expense on issuers because its cost
will be less than or equal to the cost savings resulting
from the services.
***
II
A
Norman and Elizabeth Hahn and their three sons are
devout members of the Mennonite Church, a Christian
denomination. The Mennonite Church opposes abortion
and believes that “[t]he fetus in its earliest stages . . .
shares humanity with those who conceived it.”
Fifty years ago, Norman Hahn started a woodworking business in his garage, and since then, this
company, Conestoga Wood Specialties, has grown and
now has 950 employees. Conestoga is organized under
Pennsylvania law as a for-profit corporation. The Hahns
exercise sole ownership of the closely held business; they
control its board of directors and hold all of its voting
shares. One of the Hahn sons serves as the president and
CEO.
The Hahns believe that they are required to run their
business “in accordance with their religious beliefs and
moral principles.” To that end, the company’s mission, as
they see it, is to “operate in a professional environment
founded upon the highest ethical, moral, and Christian
principles.” The company’s “Vision and Values
Statements” affirms that Conestoga endeavors to
“ensur[e] a reasonable profit in [a] manner that reflects
[the Hahns’] Christian heritage.”
As explained in Conestoga’s board-adopted
“Statement on the Sanctity of Human Life,” the Hahns
believe that “human life begins at conception.” It is
therefore “against [their] moral conviction to be involved
in the termination of human life” after conception, which
they believe is a “sin against God to which they are held
accountable.” The Hahns have accordingly excluded
from the group-health-insurance plan they offer to their
employees certain contraceptive methods that they
consider to be abortifacients.
Forty-five years ago, David Green started an arts-andcrafts store that has grown into a nationwide chain called
Hobby Lobby. There are now 500 Hobby Lobby stores,
and the company has more than 13,000 employees.
Hobby Lobby is organized as a for-profit corporation
under Oklahoma law.
The Hahns and Conestoga sued HHS and other
federal officials and agencies under RFRA . . . seeking to
enjoin application of ACA’s contraceptive mandate
insofar as it requires them to provide health-insurance
coverage for four FDA-approved contraceptives that may
operate after the fertilization of an egg. These include
two forms of emergency contraception commonly called
“morning after” pills and two types of intrauterine
devices.
One of David’s sons started an affiliated business,
Mardel, which operates 35 Christian bookstores and
employs close to 400 people. Mardel is also organized as
a for-profit corporation under Oklahoma law.
In opposing the requirement to provide coverage for
the contraceptives to which they object, the Hahns
argued that “it is immoral and sinful for [them] to
intentionally participate in, pay for, facilitate, or
otherwise support these drugs.” The District Court . . .
and the Third Circuit [held] that “for-profit, secular
corporations cannot engage in religious exercise” within
the meaning of RFRA . . . .
B
David and Barbara Green and their three children are
Christians who own and operate two family businesses.
Though these two businesses have expanded over the
years, they remain closely held, and David, Barbara, and
their children retain exclusive control of both companies.
David serves as the CEO of Hobby Lobby, and his three
children serve as the president, vice president, and vice
CEO.
Hobby Lobby’s statement of purpose commits the
Greens to “[h]onoring the Lord in all [they] do by
operating the company in a manner consistent with
Biblical principles.” Each family member has signed a
pledge to run the businesses in accordance with the
family’s religious beliefs and to use the family assets to
support Christian ministries. . . .
Like the Hahns, the Greens believe that life begins at
conception and that it would violate their religion to
facilitate access to contraceptive drugs or devices that
operate after that point. They specifically object to the
same four contraceptive methods as the Hahns and, like
the Hahns, they have no objection to the other 16 FDAapproved methods of birth control. . . .
The Greens, Hobby Lobby, and Mardel sued HHS and
other federal agencies and officials to challenge the
contraceptive mandate under RFRA . . . .
III
A
RFRA prohibits the “Government [from] substantially
burden[ing] a person’s exercise of religion even if the
burden results from a rule of general applicability”
unless the Government “demonstrates that application of
the burden to the person—(1) is in furtherance of a
compelling governmental interest; and (2) is the least
restrictive means of furthering that compelling
governmental interest.” (emphasis added). The first
question that we must address is whether this provision
applies to regulations that govern the activities of forprofit corporations like Hobby Lobby, Conestoga, and
Mardel.
HHS contends that neither these companies nor their
owners can even be heard under RFRA. According to
HHS, the companies cannot sue because they seek to
make a profit for their owners, and the owners cannot be
heard because the regulations, at least as a formal matter,
apply only to the compa…
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