Here's a point about the Hobby Lobby case that no one is addressing . . . [View all]

[markpkessinger]

OK, so here's a point concerning the Hobby Lobby case that was argued yesterday before the Supreme Court that I've not seen addressed anywhere. Hobby Lobby is a privately held corporation (Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc.), whose shares are owned by founder David Green and members of his family. By virtue of incorporating his business, Mr. Green and his family enjoy the chief benefit of incorporation: the shielding of their personal assets from the debts and liabilities of the business. (Google "benefits of incorporating" and you will see that that freedom from personal liability is cited in virtually every article on the subject as being the primary reason to, and benefit of, incorporating a business. Once a business is incorporated, as a matter of law, the business is treated as a wholly separate entity from its individual shareholders, even where, as here, there may be only a handful of shareholders who are all members of the same family. The corporate entity, and not the shareholders, becomes solely responsible for the debts and liabilities of the business. And generally speaking, only the corporate entity can be sued over any disputes involving the business. (There is something called "piercing the corporate veil," where one can go after shareholders and officers individually, but that is only available under very exceedingly rare and narrow circumstances.) Owners of unincorporated business -- partnerships, sole proprietorships, etc., don't enjoiy these same protections.

So, given that Hobby Lobby is a completely separate entity from its owner-shareholders in every other respect, how is it that the owners, individually, can claim that their religious liberty is in any way infringed when the _corporate entity_ -- from whose interests they have legally and voluntarily separated themselves -- is required to comply with a regulation that requires it to do something the individual shareholder-owners have a religious objection to doing? Seems to me they are enjoying all he benefits of having legally separate interests, yet are seeking, in this one particular area, to claim those interests are one and the same. If they are going to enjoy the benefit of limited liability, should they not also be barred from imputing matters that are purelye a matter of individual conscience onto that separate corporate entity?