BREAKING: Supreme Court: Can't Make Employers Cover Contraception (Hobby Lobby Case 5-4)

[Divernan]

131. Guess you were so excited, you posted this in the wrong spot.

You asked about blood transfusions, and I gave you exact language from the opinion:
"This decision concerns only the contraceptive mandate and should not be understood to mean that all insurance mandates, that is for blood transfusions or vaccinations, necessarily fail if they conflict with an employer's religious beliefs."

Secondly, you wrote: Now all a company has to do is declare itself religious, and then they can cut medical care.

In reply to this, I provided a second caveat/qualification from the opinion: "It does not provide a shield for employers who might cloak illegal discrimination as a religious practice."

I was responding to your comments re blood transfusions and employers' religious beliefs. You did not raise the issue of contraceptive mandate in the post to which I responded, did you!
Now that brings us to stare decisis. As a lawyer and former law professor, I do know
exactly what it means, but you do not.

Definition of 'Stare Decisis'

A Latin term meaning "to stand by that which is decided". Stare decisis is a legal principle which dictates that courts cannot disregard the standard. The court must uphold prior decisions. In essence, this legal principle dictates that once a law has been determined by the appellate court (which hears and determines appeals from the decisions of the trial courts) to be relevant to the facts of the case, future cases will follow the same principle of law if they involve considerably identical facts.

By including the two above quoted qualifications, SCOTUS specifically excluded the possibility of subsequent parties claiming stare decisis for those two issues.