Via Fox News:
The Catholic family that owns a Colorado-based company won a court victory in their battle to stop the Obama administration from requiring them to provide insurance coverage for abortion-inducing drugs, sterilization and contraception, a mandate they say violates their religious beliefs and First Amendment rights.Hercules Industries, a Denver-based heating ventilation and air conditioning manufacturer that employs nearly 300 full-time workers, got an injunction in federal court which stops enforcement of the controversial ObamaCare mandate. The company’s lawyers said they needed the injunction immediately because if the mandate is enforced, it must begin immediately making changes to its health plan, which renews on Nov. 1.The case is similar to ones brought by Catholic-based colleges that have refused to provide employee insurance with such coverage, except this time, it is a secular corporation.In his order, Colorado District Judge John Kane said that the government’s arguments “are countered, and indeed outweighed, by the public interest in the free exercise of religion.”
The Order is on a preliminary injunction, so it is not permanent yet.
The balance of the equities tip strongly in favor of injunctive relief in this case. Because this case presents “questions going to the merits . . . so serious, substantial, difficult, and doubtful as to make the issue ripe for litigation and deserving of more deliberate investigation,” I find it appropriate to enjoin the implementation of the preventive care coverage mandate as applied to Plaintiffs.Accordingly, Defendants, their agents, officers, and employees, and their requirements that Plaintiffs provide FDA-approved contraceptive methods, sterilization procedures, and patient education and counseling for women with reproductive capacity, are ENJOINED from any application or enforcement thereof against Plaintiffs, including the substantive requirement imposed in 42 U.S.C. § 300gg-13(a)(4), the application of the penalties found in 26 U.S.C. §§ 4980D & 4980H and 29 U.S.C. § 1132, and any determination that the requirements are applicable to Plaintiffs….Such injunction shall expire three months from entry of an order on the merits of Plaintiffs’ challenge.
Also, at the end of the opinion the judge made clear that the injunction was only as to this company, signaling that a challenge to the regulations may have to be made on a case-by-case basis.
Newland _Hercules Industries_ v Sebelius – Order Granting Preliminary Injunction
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