Judge grants injunction in PPACA benefits mandate case

“To offer prescriptions that take life is not an option for us,” said Green, who attended Friday’s hearing with other family members and supporters.

Heaton, who rejected the companies’ request to block the mandate in November, issued the injunction less than a month after the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the companies were likely to prevail in the case. Heaton ruled last month that the company would not be subject to fines of up to $1.3 million a day for not offering the birth control methods.

There are currently 63 separate lawsuits challenging the preventive services birth control coverage mandate, 34 of them involving for-profit businesses like Hobby Lobby.

Kyle Duncan, Hobby Lobby’s lead attorney, argued that requiring the company to comply with the mandate would be a burden to religious exercise. HHS has granted exemptions from portions of PPACA for plans that cover tens of millions of people and an injunction for Hobby Lobby would be in the public interest and would not burden the government, he said.

The government’s lawyer, Michelle Bennett, urged Heaton to consider the potential harm an injunction might create for Hobby Lobby’s 13,000 employees and members of their families who would be denied coverage for the emergency contraceptives.

In handing down his ruling, Heaton said he was surprised that the Denver-based 10th Circuit’s decision in the case seemed to extend a person’s constitutional religious exercise rights to businesses. He said it was in the public interest to issue an injunction to give courts time to resolve “substantial unanswered questions.”

“The questions that are being presented here are new,” the judge said.

See also:

• Court rules Hobby Lobby can challenge PPACA
• Hobby Lobby request to block health law denied
• Judge: Hobby Lobby must offer morning-after pill