Also known as: Health and Human Services · DHHS · Dept. of HHS · U.S. HHS
Written by attorneys — see sources below.
A federal executive department responsible for protecting public health and delivering essential human services. The department administers programs ranging from Medicare and Medicaid to child support enforcement and food and drug regulation.
Hakim Hall petitions to establish paternity of a child. The State Child Support Division offers results from the Central Valley Public Health Laboratory. The laboratory holds accreditation only for infectious disease work. The court excludes the results because the laboratory lacks accreditation by the AABB or a body designated by the Secretary of HHS.
Felicity pays the annual individual mandate penalty collected with her federal income tax return. She sues the Department of Health and Human Services claiming the exaction is an unconstitutional penalty rather than a tax. The court upholds the payment after examining its income-based structure and substantial revenue projection.
In 2010 Congress enacted the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act containing hundreds of provisions across ten titles. The Act requires most Americans to maintain minimum essential health insurance coverage beginning in 2014 or else make a shared responsibility payment calculated as a percentage of household income subject to a floor and ceiling. The Act also expands Medicaid by requiring participating states to cover adults with incomes up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level while increasing federal funding but threatening loss of all Medicaid funds for noncompliance. On the day the President signed the Act Florida and twelve other states filed suit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Florida challenging the individual mandate provisions under Article I. The original plaintiffs were later joined by eighteen additional states several individuals and the National Federation of Independent Business. The District Court held that the individual mandate exceeded congressional power and could not be severed from the remainder of the Act so it struck down the entire statute. The Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit affirmed that the individual mandate exceeded congressional power but held the provision severable from the rest of the Act while unanimously upholding the Medicaid expansion. Other courts of appeals reached conflicting results on the mandate with the Sixth Circuit and the D.C. Circuit upholding it under the commerce power and the Fourth Circuit applying the Anti-Injunction Act to bar review. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to review the Eleventh Circuit judgment on both the individual mandate and the Medicaid expansion and appointed amici curiae to address severability and the Anti-Injunction Act. The penalty for noncompliance with the individual mandate first becomes enforceable in 2014. The present suit seeks to restrain its future collection. The Act describes the payment as a penalty rather than a tax. It directs that the payment be assessed and collected in the same manner as taxes but bars the IRS from using criminal prosecutions or levies to enforce it.
View caseHammer Construction objects to providing certain contraceptive coverage under its employee health plan. The company sues the Department of Health and Human Services asserting a religious exemption. The court evaluates whether the mandate substantially burdens the company's exercise of religion.
In 2012 and 2013, three closely held for-profit corporations—Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., Mardel, Inc., and Conestoga Wood Specialties Corp.—along with their owners, the Green and Hahn families, filed suits against the Secretary of Health and Human Services and other federal officials. Hobby Lobby operates over 500 stores with more than 13,000 employees. Mardel runs 35 Christian bookstores with nearly 400 employees. Conestoga employs about 950 people in its woodworking business. The Green family owns and operates Hobby Lobby and Mardel. The Hahn family owns and operates Conestoga. Both families hold sincere Christian religious beliefs that life begins at conception. Under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010, employers with 50 or more full-time employees must provide group health insurance covering certain preventive services for women, including 20 FDA-approved contraceptive methods, without cost sharing. The Department of Health and Human Services issued regulations requiring coverage of all 20 methods. The Greens and Hahns object specifically to four methods because they believe these may prevent implantation of a fertilized egg, which they view as destroying an embryo in violation of their faith. If the companies fail to provide the required coverage, they face penalties of $100 per day per affected employee, potentially reaching $475 million annually for Hobby Lobby, $33 million for Conestoga, and $15 million for Mardel. Alternatively, dropping coverage entirely could trigger penalties of $2,000 per employee per year. The companies and owners sued under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, seeking to enjoin the mandate as applied to the four objected-to methods. The District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma denied a preliminary injunction to the Greens and their companies. The Tenth Circuit reversed, holding that the corporations could assert RFRA claims. In the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, the District Court denied a preliminary injunction to the Hahns and Conestoga. The Third Circuit affirmed, concluding that for-profit corporations cannot exercise religion under RFRA. The Supreme Court granted certiorari and consolidated the cases.
View caseHannah Hughes and her spouse seek recognition of their out-of-state marriage for federal benefits administered by the Department of Health and Human Services. State officials refuse recognition under existing law. The court considers whether the federal definition of marriage violates equal protection.
The petitioners were fourteen same-sex couples and two men whose same-sex partners were deceased. They lived in Michigan, Kentucky, Ohio, and Tennessee. Those states defined marriage as a union between one man and one woman under their constitutions and statutes. The petitioners filed suits in federal district courts in their home states. They sought marriage licenses or recognition of marriages lawfully performed elsewhere. James Obergefell and John Arthur traveled from Ohio to Maryland to marry aboard a medical transport plane because Arthur suffered from ALS; Obergefell later sought to be listed as surviving spouse on Arthur's death certificate. April DeBoer and Jayne Rowse, Michigan nurses, adopted three children but could not both serve as legal parents under state adoption rules. Army Reserve Sergeant Ijpe DeKoe and Thomas Kostura married in New York before DeKoe's deployment to Afghanistan and later settled in Tennessee. Each district court ruled in the petitioners' favor. The respondents appealed. The Sixth Circuit consolidated the cases and reversed the district court judgments. The petitioners sought certiorari, which the Supreme Court granted. Same-sex couples had begun establishing families after substantial cultural and political developments in the late twentieth century. Earlier litigation had addressed the legal status of gays and lesbians, including challenges that reached the Supreme Court in Bowers v. Hardwick and Lawrence v. Texas.
View caseHarriet Hamilton purchases health insurance through a federally facilitated exchange. She claims premium tax credits administered in part through HHS programs. State officials challenge the availability of the credits. The court determines whether the statutory text permits credits on federal exchanges.
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was enacted in 2010 after earlier state-level attempts at insurance market reforms in the 1990s produced adverse selection and rising premiums. The Act combined guaranteed-issue and community-rating requirements with an individual coverage mandate and refundable tax credits for households earning between 100 and 400 percent of the federal poverty line. It directed each State to establish an American Health Benefit Exchange but provided that the Secretary of Health and Human Services would establish and operate such an Exchange if a State did not. Sixteen States and the District of Columbia created their own Exchanges; the remaining thirty-four States, including Virginia, have Federal Exchanges operated by HHS. The IRS promulgated a regulation in 2012 interpreting the tax-credit provisions to apply to insurance purchased on any Exchange, whether established by a State or by the Federal Government. Petitioners, four Virginia residents who did not wish to purchase health insurance, filed suit in the Eastern District of Virginia challenging that regulation. The district court dismissed the complaint, concluding that the statute unambiguously made credits available on Federal Exchanges. The Fourth Circuit affirmed, treating the statute as ambiguous and deferring to the IRS interpretation under Chevron. On the same day the Fourth Circuit ruled, the D.C. Circuit reached the opposite conclusion in a separate case and vacated the IRS rule. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to resolve the conflict.
View caseHope Howard publishes works whose copyrights would have expired under prior law. She challenges the extended term. The court evaluates whether the extension violates the Copyright Clause.
In 1998 Congress enacted the Copyright Term Extension Act, which extended the duration of all federal copyrights by twenty years. For works created by identified natural persons the new term runs from creation until seventy years after the author's death. For anonymous works, pseudonymous works, and works made for hire the term is ninety-five years from publication or one hundred twenty years from creation, whichever expires first. The statute applied these extended terms both to copyrights already in existence and to works created after its effective date. Petitioners are individuals and businesses whose products or services build on copyrighted works that have gone into the public domain. They filed suit in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia seeking a declaration that the extension of existing copyrights exceeded Congress's power under the Copyright Clause and violated the First Amendment. On cross-motions for judgment on the pleadings the district court entered judgment for the Attorney General. The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit affirmed. A majority of the panel upheld the statute against both challenges, while Judge Sentelle dissented in part on the Copyright Clause issue. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to address whether the extension of existing copyrights exceeds Congress's power under the Copyright Clause and whether the extension violates the First Amendment.
View caseHHS is the standard abbreviation for the Department of Health and Human Services, the federal executive department that administers public health programs and human services.
The laboratory must be accredited by the AABB or by an accrediting body designated by the Secretary of the United States Department of Health and Human Services.
The clause requires the President to ensure faithful execution of existing statutes rather than substitute an alternative enforcement regime created solely by executive action.
An exaction is treated as a tax when it varies with income and filing status, is collected by the IRS with tax returns, and is projected to raise substantial revenue, regardless of regulatory purpose.
Congress may limit district court jurisdiction over such challenges when it creates a specialized federal forum and preserves some federal adjudicative path, consistent with Article III authority to regulate jurisdiction.