In the birth control cases challenging the Affordable Care Act mandate for contraceptives collectively known as Zubik v. Burwell, the U.S. Supreme Court today issued a per curiam decision remanding the cases back to the appellate courts for further consideration based upon the positions taken by the parties at the U.S. Supreme Court. You may recall that the Justices asked for extraordinary additional briefing from the parties after oral argument to urge them to find a consensus on which they could settle the case.
Lyle Denniston reports at SCOTUSblog has the opinion Opinion analysis: A compromise, with real impact, on birth control:
Without settling any legal issues surrounding the Affordable Care Act’s birth-control mandate, the Supreme Court on Monday nevertheless cleared the way for the government to promptly provide no-cost access to contraceptives for employees and students of non-profit religious hospitals, charities, and colleges, while barring any penalties on those institutions for failing to provide that access themselves. Thirteen separate cases were sent back to federal appeals courts for them to issue new rulings on the questions the Justices left undecided. One immediate issue is how soon the government can work out the technical arrangements to provide actual access to the contraceptive benefits.
The Court largely shifted to six federal appeals courts the task of ruling on the mandate’s legality — the task that the Court had agreed last November to take on itself in seven of the cases. Five appeals courts had ruled in favor of the mandate, and one had ruled against. All were ordered to re-think those outcomes in the wake of new positions that the two sides in the controversy had made in recent filings in the pending Supreme Court cases.