Legal Spirits Episode 021: The New Little Sisters of the Poor Case (featuring Prof. Kevin Walsh)
Release Date
4-2-2020
Description
The Little Sisters of the Poor are litigants before the Supreme Court once more, this time as intervening defendants in an action by Pennsylvania and New Jersey against the federal government. The factual issue is a set of regulations adopted by the federal government that fully exempt organizations like the Little Sisters from the “contraception mandate”–an extremely controversial feature of the Patient Protection Affordable Care Act that has been litigated for what will shortly be a decade. The case is Little Sisters of the Poor Saints Peter and Paul Home v. Pennsylvania, and it implicates complicated questions about religious freedom.
In this podcast, we are absolutely delighted to be joined by our first guest on Legal Spirits, Professor Kevin Walsh of the University of Richmond Law School, who has represented the Little Sisters before and has a keen understanding of the many intricacies of this important case. We recapitulate the history of this case, discuss the decisions below, and talk about the claims before the Supreme Court. We focus on the question of standing and the broader issue of the scope of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and how this case might affect it. Listen in!