[JURIST] Religious groups including the Little Sisters of the Poor [advocacy website], and the US Department of Justice (DOJ) [official website] on Tuesday filed supplemental briefs [SCOTUSblog report; Petitioner brief, PDF; DOJ brief, PDF] with the US Supreme Court [official website] Tuesday in the case of Zubik v. Burwell [SCOUTSblog materials]. In a rare move, the parties were ordered by the court to file supplemental briefs following oral argument in March [JURIST reports]. The order tasked the parties to “address whether and how contraceptive coverage may be obtained by petitioners’ employees through petitioners’ insurance companies, but in a way that does not require any involvement of petitioners beyond their own decision to provide health insurance without contraceptive coverage to their employees.” The order is viewed as a signal to the parties that the court is seeking to avoid a split 4-4 decision [WSJ report] in the matter. The Little Sisters of the Poor presented the court with the option to make a carve out within the Affordable Care Act (ACA) [text] for workers at religiously affiliated institutions. The federal government argued [Washington Times report] that religious non-profits should be required to alert their insurance companies and the insurance company would provide the contraception if desired, which would not change the self-certification process.

The court granted certiorari [JURIST report] in Burwell and consolidated it with six other cases where religious non-profit institutions are challenging aspects of the birth control mandate under the health care reform laws in the US [JURIST backgrounder]. The dispute [SCOTUSblog report] centers around the birth control mandate of the ACA. Petitioners argue that they fall under an accommodation set out in a 2013 rule making that clarified the ACA by providing an exemption for houses of worship and similar religious organizations from the birth control mandate, subsequent to certification from the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) [official website] that the organization had religious objections to providing contraception [Health Affairs backgrounder], based on the privilege provided by the US government pursuant to the Religious Freedom Restoration Act [bill text, PDF]. In February the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit upheld the contraceptive mandate of the Affordable Care Act [JURIST report] but enjoined the Secretary of HHS from the enforcing the mandate until the Court weighs in on the issue.