Category Archives: Courts

Appellate Court En Banc Hearings

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The DC Circuit a short time ago held in Halbig v Burwell that Federal regulations regarding Federal health plan exchanges violate Obamacare’s plain language: Federal subsidies, contrary to those regulations, are available only to health plan holders who got their plans through State-run health plan exchanges.

Adam White, in a recent Wall Street Journal piece in the context of that ruling and the Federal government’s subsequent appeal to the DC Circuit to rehear the case en banc, noted a couple of things.

One is how rare en banc (re)hearings are, especially for the DC Circuit:

The DC Circuit rehears virtually none of its cases. Each year the court’s three-judge panels make roughly 500 rulings, but the court averages roughly one en banc rehearing. This year has produced a bumper crop: two. The previous year: zero.

Then he got into why this is so.

…the court’s high standard, found in the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure: en banc rehearing “is not favored and ordinarily will not be ordered” unless the case satisfies one of two standards. First, an en banc rehearing may be needed to “secure or maintain uniformity of the court’s decisions.” A three-judge panel is not allowed to overrule old precedents, even when precedents are in conflict; only the full court can do so, en banc.

Second, en banc rehearing is appropriate for what the federal appellate rules call cases of “exceptional importance.” For the DC Circuit, this standard has been met almost exclusively by cases raising serious constitutional issues. Over the past decade seven of the nine cases reheard en banc raised difficult questions of constitutional law, such as the rights of Guantanamo detainees or of terminally ill patients.

Cases that will substantially affect the court’s own workings also can be deemed of “exceptional importance.” In 2011, the court sat en banc to decide whether taxpayers could file lawsuits challenging IRS procedures for obtaining tax refunds.

Halbig was a straightforward application of the Obamacare law as it was written. That the 4th Circuit saw this differently isn’t relevant; the DC Circuit can only rehear its own cases, not those of sister appellate courts. There’s no precedent conflict here. Some might argue that the question has Constitutional significance, and I’d agree with them. However, neither set of litigants raised any sort of Constitutional question, and the case and the ruling turned on the law itself. There’s no Constitutional controversy here, either.

What about the case’s “exceptional importance?” Judge Harry Edwards, who dissented in Halbig, wrote this in a 1987 case [Edwards’ emphasis]:

[N]o judge agrees with all of the decisions handed down in the circuit….” But if each judge called for en banc rehearing simply to overturn a panel decision with which he personally disagrees, it would do “substantial violence to the collegiality that is indispensable to judicial decision-making.” Rather, en banc review must be reserved for “the rarest of circumstances… [with] real significance to the legal process.”

In the context ofHalbig, it’ll be instructive to see whether the DC Circuit’s newly appointed judges are appellate judges who happen to be Democrats or whether they are Democrats who happen to be appellate judges.

The Second Amendment and a Judge’s Misunderstanding

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And a State’s misunderstanding. Fortunately, the Ninth Circuit, that bastion of conservatism, corrected the State’s misapprehension and struck its law regarding a man’s right to carry a firearm outside his home. The Ninth’s dissenter, though, is illuminating, and worrisome.

The situation is this. California is a “may issue” state, meaning that local authorities are allowed to use their discretion in deciding whether to issue a concealed carry permit or license that would authorize a California citizen to carry a firearm outside his home. California is even more restrictive in that “may issue” bit, though; it requires its citizens to satisfy those local authorities that the supplicant applicant has “good cause” for being permitted. That’s the State’s misunderstanding, corrected by the Ninth.

San Diego County residents, including the six plaintiffs in this case, were forced to sue for their licenses because the sheriff’s department, the “local authority” here, routinely—universally—denied licenses because the sheriff could never be satisfied that “good cause” existed. The case made its way to the Ninth with the above victory for the plaintiffs. The majority opinion held, in part, that

One of Heller’s most important lessons is that the Second Amendment “codif[ies] a pre-existing right….”

…a law that destroys (rather than merely burdens) a right central to the Second Amendment must be struck down.

And [citations generally omitted, emphasis in the original]:

We thus disagree with those courts—including the district court in this case—that have taken the view that it is not necessary (and, thus, necessary not) to decide whether carrying a gun in public for the lawful purpose of self-defense is a constitutionally protected activity. Understanding the scope of the right is not just necessary, it is key to our analysis. For if self-defense outside the home is part of the core right to “bear arms” and the California regulatory scheme prohibits the exercise of that right, no amount of interest-balancing under a heightened form of means-ends scrutiny can justify San Diego County’s policy. See Heller (“The very enumeration of the right takes out of the hands of government—even the Third Branch of Government—the power to decide on a case-by-case basis whether the right is really worth insisting upon.”).

And [citation omitted, emphasis in the original]:

But the fact that a small group of people [e.g., retired cops, and others suggested in the opinion] have the ability to exercise their right to bear arms does not end our inquiry. Because the Second Amendment “confer[s] an individual right to keep and bear arms,” we must assess whether the California scheme deprives any individual of his constitutional rights. Thus, the question is not whether the California scheme (in light of San Diego County’s policy) allows some people to bear arms outside the home in some places at some times; instead, the question is whether it allows the typical responsible, law-abiding citizen to bear arms in public for the lawful purpose of self-defense. The answer to the latter question is a resounding “no.”

Certainly, reasonable men can disagree about the degree of burden that’s appropriate (demonstrating a reasonable proficiency with firearms, akin to demonstrating a reasonable proficiency with cars as a prerequisite to being issued a driver’s license, for instance; at the other end of the scale, four states have no licensing requirements at all), but clearly that burden cannot become a barrier, as the appellate court acknowledged.

This is where the dissenter’s misunderstanding comes in. Judge Sidney Thomas argued this:

The Supreme Court has instructed that the core of the Second Amendment is “the right of law-abiding, responsible citizens to use arms in defense of hearth and home.” Heller…. Carrying concealed weapons in public by definition does not inherently involve defense of hearth and home, so the core of the Second Amendment is not implicated.

But this is a misreading of the Supremes’ opinion as well as of the 2nd Amendment itself. What the Supreme Court said, more fully, in that cite is this:

And whatever else it [the 2nd Amendment] leaves to future evaluation, it surely elevates above all other interests the right of law-abiding, responsible citizens to use arms in defense of hearth and home.

Plainly, “defense of hearth and home” was offered as an example of what is protected by the 2nd, not an enumeration of the total reach of it. Beyond that, this is the 2nd Amendment:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Not only is “defense of hearth and home” not numbered here, it cannot be: limiting the security of a free State to defense of points of property prevents on its face the ability to see to the security of the State: those arms must be borne where the threats exist (including preemptively)—by the citizens acting individually, as is the duty of every citizen in a free State, as well as collectively through a militia (or today’s professional armed forces)—for when the threat reaches a domicile’s doorstep, the State’s security already is lost.

But the right to “keep and bear Arms” is an individual right, as well as the collective right of the individuals’ militia, as the Supreme Court also has acknowledged, and for much the same reason. If the individual citizen cannot “keep and bear Arms” nearly anywhere he may choose to go, then he cannot see to his own security (not only his own defense). And if the individual is not secure, then the aggregation of them that is a “free State” cannot be secure.

But the matter goes beyond even that. What is “security?” It’s far more than merely self-defense. Pedantically, the first definition of “security” in Johnson’s Dictionary, contemporaneous with the writing and ratification—by the people of the United States—of our Constitution, is “freedom from fear.” We have to go all the way to the third definition (of five) to get to “Protection; defence [sic].”

And it is exactly that. Any infringement of this right, any limit a Court might presume to place on this Amendment, can only reduce that freedom from fear. Fear comes from many sources, not only from an immediate attack on one’s person. Fear also comes from limitations on individual responsibilities, it also comes from limitations on individual liberty, it also comes from sources only tenuously, if at all, related to politics or general society.

This makes the permissible purposes for carrying firearms very broad, indeed, deliberately vaguely put in the Amendment, and beyond the ability of government to prescribe; they are not limited to “hunting,” or to “personal defense,” or to…. For a government—any branch of it—to determine what permissible purposes may be is to enumerate what can only be a subset of the 2nd Amendment’s range of purposes, and that is a very dangerous determination.

Unfortunately, the Ninth’s majority judges also seem to misunderstand the reach of the 2nd Amendment, focusing as they do on the “purpose” of self-defense, but they got to the correct immediate decision, at least.

The Ninth’s decision can be read here. The Supreme Court’s Heller decision can be read here.

Some More Thoughts on Hobby Lobby

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I’m riffing here and in a nearby post on The Wall Street Journal Law Blog‘s excerpts of a couple of opinions from this week’s Supreme Court Hobby Lobby decision. That decision can be seen here.

The excerpts in this post are from Justice Samuel Alito’s opinion for the court.

Page 2: Under [the Religious Freedom Restoration Act], a Government action that imposes a substantial burden on religious exercise must serve a compelling government interest, and we assume that the HHS regulations satisfy this requirement. But in order for the HHS mandate to be sustained, it must also constitute the least restrictive means of serving that interest, and the mandate plainly fails that test. There are other ways Congress or HHS could equally insure that every woman has cost-free access to the particular contraceptives at issue here and, indeed, all FDA-approved contraceptives.

There are a couple of false premises here, or seem to be. I’m having a discussion with an actual lawyer (guess whose argument will prevail…) on whether Justice Alito is accepting the premise of a compelling interest arguendo or in fact. Assuming I’m right (arguendo), then Alito’s argument that government has any interest at all in “insuring that every woman has cost-free access…,” or any interest at all in insuring that any person has cost-free access… is false.

The additional false premise is that government can provide anything for free: those things government mandates be “free” to any individual, in fact, cannot be free—they’re just paid for by someone else. That a thing is free to the nominal…obtainer…is a non sequitur.

Page 3: In fact, HHS has already devised and implemented a system that seeks to respect the religious liberty of religious nonprofit corporations while ensuring that the employees of these entities have precisely the same access to all FDA-approved contraceptives as employees of companies whose owners have no religious objections to providing such coverage. The employees of these religious nonprofit corporations still have access to insurance coverage without cost sharing for all FDA-approved contraceptives; and according to HHS, this system imposes no net economic burden on the insurance companies that are required to provide or secure the coverage,

My comments here are tangential to Alito’s purpose in bringing this into the opinion; I’m commenting on the bare remarks. The decision to provide or not to provide “access to all FDA-approved contraceptives” must be a business decision in the freely competitive market for labor, not at all a government (political or judicial) decision.

Regarding the exemption for purely religious organizations (someone other than the religious organization pays for that aspect of a health plan, not the religious organization itself), the argument misses the point entirely. Who pays for the contraceptive coverage is not the problem; the problem is that being required to be a party to the provision at all is the violation of the entity’s religious tenets.

The distinction is made clearer in the next excerpt [emphasis mine]:

Page 32: As we have noted, the Hahns and Greens have a sincere religious belief that life begins at conception. They therefore object on religious grounds to providing health insurance that covers methods of birth control that, as HHS acknowledges…may result in the destruction of an embryo. By requiring the Hahns and Greens and their companies to arrange for such coverage, the HHS mandate demands that they engage in conduct that seriously violates their religious beliefs.

If the Hahns and Greens and their companies do not yield to this demand, the economic consequences will be severe. If the companies continue to offer group health plans that do not cover the contraceptives at issue, they will be taxed $100 per day for each affected individual…. For Hobby Lobby, the bill could amount to $1.3 million per day or about $475 million per year; for Conestoga, the assessment could be $90,000 per day or $33 million per year; and for Mardel, it could be $40,000 per day or about $15 million per year. These sums are surely substantial.

Some argue that the ruling is too narrow because the opinion limits the illegitimacy of the contraceptive mandate to closely help companies with only a few owners. I agree; see my discussion of this in my riff on Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s excerpted opinion nearby.

Where I part company with them is in their tacit conclusion that this is the end of the matter. I think this is just a first step on a short path (if time consuming to traverse) to fully restoring the Free Exercise Clause. The short list of business owners of a closely held company will be expanded to include all owners of companies of any size.

Some Thoughts on Hobby Lobby

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I’m riffing here and in a nearby post on The Wall Street Journal Law Blog‘s excerpts of a couple of opinions from this week’s Supreme Court Hobby Lobby decision. That decision can be seen here.

The excerpts in this post are from Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s dissent.

Page 8 of the dissent: The exemption sought by Hobby Lobby and Conestoga would override significant interests of the corporations’ employees and covered dependents. It would deny legions of women who do not hold their employers’ beliefs access to contraceptive coverage that the [Affordable Care Act] would otherwise secure… In sum, with respect to free exercise claims no less than free speech claims, “[y]our right to swing your arms ends just where the other man’s nose begins.”

This is nonsense. “Corporations’ employees and covered dependents” have no legitimate interest in company-paid, or insurance-paid, contraceptives. This is the sort of thing that’s plainly user maintenance, and belongs in the pocket books of the user. Besides, as a practical matter, contraceptives just aren’t that expensive. Another aspect about this claim that fascinates me is a bit of history. It used to be the case that offering a dental plan or health coverage was a business competition matter in the market for quality employees. That got nearly completely morphed into a manufactured “right.” Now Justice Ginsburg is busily (and cynically, say I) attempting to manufacture a “right” to contraceptives paid for with OPM.

Contra Ginsburg’s other claim here, women are not prevented from exercising their own religious beliefs. They remain free to practice their beliefs, and as the separate matter that this truly is, they’re free to obtain the contraceptives of their choice. They just don’t get to force other people to pay for them, any more than, oh, let’s say, a Presbyterian gets to force a Lutheran to pay for the former’s church. As Ginsburg noted in the above excerpt, “[y]our right to swing your arms ends just where the other man’s nose begins.” That applies to both people’s arms.

Pages 19, 33-34: The Court’s determination that [the Religious Freedom Restoration Act] extends to for-profit corporations is bound to have untoward effects. Although the Court attempts to cabin its language to closely held corporations, its logic extends to corporations of any size, public or private….

Would the exemption the Court holds RFRA demands for employers with religiously grounded objections to the use of certain contraceptives extend to employers with religiously grounded objections to blood transfusions (Jehovah’s Witnesses); antidepressants (Scientologists); medications derived from pigs, including anesthesia, intravenous fluids, and pills coated with gelatin (certain Muslims, Jews, and Hindus); and vaccinations (Christian Scientists, among others)?

I agree with Ginsburg’s argument on the extensibility of the exemption from closely held corporations to “corporations of any size, public or private,” and I hope she’s right. On what basis would a government claim that the owners of a closely held business, being small in number, have a legitimate claim on exercising their religious beliefs through their business, but the business owners of a large corporation (the shareowners of GM is one example bandied about in this context) must set aside their religious beliefs for the sacrilege of having bought shares in that company, or become partners in a large, interstate law firm?

On the potential for a variety of religious exemption claims, I certainly hope so—that’s what the Free Exercise is about: preventing government, especially, from dictating what a group’s religious beliefs must be, or how they must exercise those beliefs that are government-approved.

Pages 23-24: Even if one were to conclude that Hobby Lobby and Conestoga meet the substantial burden requirement, the Government has shown that the contraceptive coverage for which the ACA provides furthers compelling interests in public health and women’s well being. Those interests are concrete, specific, and demonstrated by a wealth of empirical evidence. To recapitulate, the mandated contraception coverage enables women to avoid the health problems unintended pregnancies may visit on them and their children.

Not at all. Eliminating the Contraceptive Mandate does not at all prevent women from getting the contraceptives of their choice (and so the actually rare health problems associated with pregnancies, unwanted or not). Women just won’t get to shift the cost of their choice—including their choice to use contraceptives at all—onto others.

Either we have Free Exercise, or we do not. There’s not much middle ground (there is some), but that middle assuredly cannot include government’s mandate that a man provide must for another that which his own religion bars him from providing to himself.

In Which I both Agree and Disagree

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…with a Supreme Court decision. In Mccullen v Coakley, the Supreme Court unanimously struck down a Massachusetts law that placed a mandatory 35 foot buffer zone around abortion clinics within which anti-abortion protests were prohibited. The purpose of the law, to allow women wishing an abortion unfettered access to the clinic, was met, but overbroadly, according to the court.

That’s the part with which I agree. If we’re going to argue as I have in the past that “free speech zones,” like those on too many college campuses, unconstitutionally restrict free speech, then so does the other side of that coin: non-free speech zones. Either we have free speech in this country, or we do not.

But Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the Court, displayed a sad misunderstanding of that right of free speech. In his rationale for striking Massachusetts’ law, Roberts wrote

McCullen explained that she often cannot distinguish patients from passersby outside the Boston clinic in time to initiate a conversation before they enter the buffer zone.

And [emphasis added]

As explained, because petitioners in Boston cannot readily identify patients before they enter the zone, they often cannot approach them in time to place literature near their hands….

But this ignores the other person’s (here, the woman seeking the abortion) free speech right to choose what conversation she will hear, especially when that unwanted conversation is directed at her and not, from the public square, to no one in particular (and so equally to everyone). Roberts’ thesis also ignores the intended recipient’s free speech right not to have materials pressed on her without her prior consent.

I disagree with Roberts’ rationale.

In the end, an opinion founded on bad law is itself a bad opinion, even if it reaches the right conclusion.