The Supreme Court sided with religious liberty again — this time unanimously.
“The Supreme Court got it right,” Eric Rassbach, deputy general counsel at Becket, a legal firm which filed a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of the Catholic health care networks, stated June 5. “Churches – not government bureaucrats and certainly not ambulance chasers – should decide whether hospitals are part of the church.”
Justice Elena Kagan delivered the opinion of the Court in Advocate Health Care Network v. Stapleton, a consolidation of three cases involving religious hospitals like St. Peter’s HealthCare System in New Jersey and Advocate Health Care Network. Justice Sonia Sotomayor issued a concurring opinion.