Alan Meese on "Hobby Lobby, Corporate Law, and RFRA"

The Religious Freedom Restoration Act applies only to "persons." Invoking this limitation, the Obama Administration claims that for-profit corporations such as Hobby Lobby are not RFRA persons, thus negating Hobby Lobby’s challenge to the Administration’s contraception mandate. In particular, the Administration claims that treating corporations as RFRA persons capable of exercising religion contravenes "fundamental tenets" of American corporate law.

In a brief amicus curiae, 44 professors of corporate and criminal law have elaborated on this argument. These scholars contend that treating corporations as RFRA persons that exercise their shareholders' religion violates basic principles of corporate law and would undermine that law's goals. The scholars’ brief emphasizes that corporations are separate legal entities protected from intrusion by shareholders, who enjoy limited liability behind the corporate veil. These essential attributes of corporateness, these scholars say, categorically preclude shareholders’ religion from “passing through” a boundary between shareholders and the firm and thus prevent shareholders from "impos[ing] their personal religious beliefs" on the firm. Allowing such imposition, the scholars say, would encourage intra-corporate struggles over religious identity, struggles that would sometimes result in litigation and discourage investment.

In a recent essay, Nate Oman and I argue that the Obama Administration and the scholars who support it are mistaken on this point and that for-profit corporations are in fact RFRA persons. Corporations often adopt policies that reflect shareholders’ religious beliefs. Examples include Jewish-owned restaurants or groceries that keep Kosher and remain closed on the Jewish sabbath, Christian-owned establishments that decline to sell alcohol and/or close on Sunday, and Muslim-owned firms that refuse to enter contracts that require the payment of interest. These practices do not offend corporate law, and the scholars cite no case to the contrary.

via www.theconglomerate.org