The Third Circuit has split from the Tenth Circuit on the novel question of whether the Supreme Court's extension of First Amendment protections to corporations includes religious freedom when it ruled on one of several politically-charged challenges to the contraceptive requirement of Obamacare brought around the country.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled that Conestoga Wood Specialties, a cabinet company owned by a Mennonite family, is a corporation, separate and distinct from the people who own it, which means that it can't engage in the patently human exercise of religion. The appeals court upheld the district court's denial of an injunction from the enforcement of the law that requires Conestoga to provide insurance for its 950 workers, including the female contraceptives Plan B and ella.
