Legal Challenges

At issue is the health law's requirement that employers cover birth control in their health plans without copays.

A federal appeals court on Thursday declined to revisit a decision that allowed the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia voted 6-2 to reject a request for the full court to reconsider a June ruling that upheld EPA’s interpretation of the Clean Air Act.

The court’s action could set up a Supreme Court challenge by industry, energy firms and the state of Alaska, which were pushing for the rehearing.

The court is expected to announce that it will consider whether gay marriage deserves equal treatment under federal law. 

The high court said a lower court can consider a challenge to the healthcare law's individual mandate.

The court ruled the Christian-run arts-and-crafts chain has to comply with Obama's mandate; the company will appeal.

The ruling, though narrow, is a small win for social conservatives who say the contraception policy violates the First Amendment.

The Justice Department said it does not object to a new round of legal arguments over President Obama's healthcare law.

In a brief filed with the Supreme Court late Wednesday, the Justice Department said the court should clear the way for a possible new hearing in the lawsuit filed by Liberty University.

Although the Supreme Court has already ruled that the healthcare law's individual mandate is constitutional, Liberty has asked for a new hearing because it challenged the mandate on different grounds.

Obama wasn't surprised by the decision, but thinks the court used the wrong legal reasoning.

A federal judge in Missouri has dismissed one challenge to the Obama administration's divisive birth-control coverage mandate. Frank O'Brien, a Catholic CEO based in St. Louis, argued that following the policy and covering a range of birth-control methods for female employees would violate his religious beliefs. In a ruling late Friday, U.S. District Judge Carole Jackson backed the Obama administration, rejecting that "requiring indirect financial support of a practice, from which [the] plaintiff himself abstains according to his religious principles, constitutes a substantial burden on ... religious exercise."

O'Brien runs a company, O'Brien Industrial Holdings LLC, that processes ceramic materials. His suit was one of more than 24 currently pending against the administration policy, which came as part of the 2010 federal healthcare overhaul. Most suits are from Catholic businesses and schools that not only object to the use of birth control but consider some forms of it equal to abortion. Protestant plaintiffs tend to be motivated by the latter view.

Under the mandate, churches and houses of worship are exempt, and religiously affiliated institutions don't have to pay for the birth-control coverage through their own plans — their employees will get contraception directly from the insurance company, still without a co-pay.

States have also sued the Department of Health and Human Services over the policy. In July, a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit from Texas, Ohio, Florida, South Carolina, Oklahoma, Michigan and Nebraska, ruling that they did not have standing to sue over because the mandate does not go into full effect until next year. But in a separate July decision, a federal court sided with a plaintiff, issuing a temporary injunction that allowed one Colorado-based company not to comply with the mandate on the grounds of religious expression.

The court is considering whether it should revive a religious university's lawsuit; asks DOJ to weigh in