Mortgage Company Wins Preliminary Injunction In Contraceptive Coverage Challenge

In Armstrong v. Sebelius, (D CO, Sept. 17, 2013), a Colorado federal district court granted a preliminary injunction to Cherry Creek Mortgage Co. and its Evangelical Christian owners who claim their religious liberty is infringed by the Affordable Care Act contraceptive coverage mandate. Earlier this month, the 10th Circuit (full text of Sept. 5 opinion), citing its Hobby Lobby decision, reversed an earlier district court denial of a preliminary injunction and remanded the case to the district court. An unusual feature of this case is the fact that challengers only realized belatedly that their existing health insurance policy covered the contraceptives to which they object. (See prior posting.) In granting the preliminary injunction, the court said:

Here, the status quo is that Cherry Creek Mortgage has been and still is providing the coverage to which plaintiffs object. That being so, the preliminary injunction does not preserve the status quo, which is the stuff of most injunctions, but instead alters it. The answer is that the status quo would be Cherry Creek’s refusing to provide coverage for what they classify as abortifacients had they not unwittingly begun to provide the coverage and then run into an insurmountable roadblock when they directed their insurer to terminate the coverage.