Reason #1 SCOTUS Will Regret Hobby Lobby

[eridani]

Not a lawyer, but I hope Pap is right

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/07/03/1311556/-Reason-1-SCOTUS-Will-Regret-Hobby-Lobby

After oral arguments in the Hobby Lobby case, I wrote a very misnamed but widely read diary in which I echoed Attorney and Ring of Fire radio host Mike Papantonio's argument that the SCOTUS would never rule in favor of Hobby Lobby for a really Big Business reason: It pierces the corporate veil.

If Hobby Lobby's owners can give their Corporation religion, their religion gives Hobby Lobby's owners--and any other owner, shareholder, officer, whatever--liability for the actions of the corporation. Mr. Papantonio, who happens to be one of America's preeminent trial lawyers, sees it as an opportunity to sue owners for the company's negligence.

Some other people, it turns out, agree with his assessment and expand on what it means....

That separation is what legal and business scholars call the "corporate veil," and it's fundamental to the entire operation. Now, thanks to the Hobby Lobby case, it's in question. By letting Hobby Lobby's owners assert their personal religious rights over an entire corporation, the Supreme Court has poked a major hole in the veil. In other words, if a company is not truly separate from its owners, the owners could be made responsible for its debts and other burdens.

[DetlefK]

1. Are the owners' ethics responsible for corporate malfeasance?

If the owners are so closely entwined with their company that the owners' private religious beliefs are spread into the ethics of a company, does that mean that other company-ethics are also directly connected to the owners?

For example, the work-place ethic to falsify real estate- and loan-documents.

[liberal N proud]

2. Oops

[merrily]

3. Scalia can dance around anything. He doesn't care.

He does need to be impeached.

[Wounded Bear]

4. K & R..nt

[unblock]

5. amusing academic exercise, but no way in hell the *any* supreme court will buy that argument

first and foremost, if any court found this argument somehow convincing, they'd quickly reverse the hobby lobby decision rather than create all manner of mayhem by weakening corporate owners' liability protection.

however, i don't think they'll find this argument remotely convincing. should a test case ever reach them, they won't claim that they looked to the owners' personal religious views. rather, they'll simply say that the owners imbued the corporation with certain guiding principles. going forward, companies will put anti-abortion clauses in their mission statements, business plans, and other business documents so that no one need question the owners themselves.

an ideal test case for them would be a corporation with owners who are themselves pro-choice or apathetic on the issue but who saw a business opportunity and decided to run their company as anti-abortion. the corporate behavior would simply need to be consistent in their anti-abortion views (sell anti-abortion t-shirts but no pro-choice t-shirts, e.g.).


for clarification, i think the hobby lobby decision absolutely stinks. i just don't think this argument is going to get us anywhere.