Hobby Lobby granted preliminary injunction, saved from large penalty

Hobby Lobby has won further relief from a massive penalty as it challenges the Obama administration’s contraception mandate.

A federal judge in Oklahoma City granted a preliminary injunction to Hobby Lobby on July 19, sparing the popular arts and crafts chain from a penalty that could have reached $1.3 million a day. The order bars enforcement while the case proceeds, challenging a controversial rule from the Department of Health and Human Services that requires employers to pay for coverage of contraceptives, including ones that can cause abortions.

Hobby Lobby and Mardel, a sister Christian bookstore chain, filed suit in 2012 against the rule implementing the 2010 health care reform law. Members of the Green family — evangelical Christians who own Hobby Lobby and Mardel — do not oppose all contraceptive methods, only those that have abortion-causing qualities. The federally approved drugs in question include Plan B and other “morning-after” pills including “ella,” which works in a fashion similar to the abortion drug RU 486.

After federal judge Joe Heaton granted the injunction July 19, Hobby Lobby President Steve Green explained his company’s position. 

“This case is about life; our deeply held conviction is that life begins with conception. To offer prescriptions that take life is just not an option,” he said, according to The Daily Oklahoman.

In his opinion Heaton said, according to the Becket Fund, which is representing Hobby Lobby in the case, “There is a substantial public interest in ensuring that no individual or corporation has their legs cut out from under them while these difficult issues are resolved.”

Heaton originally refused to grant a preliminary injunction, but the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed his decision June 27 and instructed him to reconsider. The court said Hobby Lobby and Mardel had demonstrated they probably would prevail in showing that the mandate infringes on their religious freedom. On June 28, Heaton issued a temporary restraining order preventing the mandate from going into effect July 1 and sparing the chains from the penalty.

(BP)