Harvard Law Review on Hobby Lobby

127 Harvard Law Review 11025 (2014)

FIRST AMENDMENT — FREE EXERCISE OF RELIGION — TENTH CIRCUIT HOLDS FOR-PROFIT CORPORATE PLAINTIFFS LIKELY TO SUCCEED ON THE MERITS OF SUBSTANTIAL BURDEN ON RELIGIOUS EXERCISE CLAIM. — Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. v. Sebelius, 723 F.3d 1114 (10th Cir. 2013).

The concluding paragraph:

The Tenth Circuit in Hobby Lobby pierced the veil between the corporate plaintiffs and their shareholders, not to protect third parties, as veil piercing is meant to, but to protect the corporations’ expression of the Greens’ religious beliefs, even while the Greens maintained the benefits of limited liability. If for-profit corporations do merit RFRA protection, such protection should be limited to the corporations’ own religious expressions. In this case, failing to limit the protection imposed the costs of the Greens’ freedom of religious exercise on any of their more than 13,000 full-time employees who choose forms of contraception that violate the Greens’ religious beliefs; those employees must now pay out of pocket, despite having had only a statement of commitment to biblical principles to warn them that they might bear those costs.