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Conestoga Wood Specialties denied challenge to contraceptive rule

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Conestoga Wood Specialties denied challenge to contraceptive rule

The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia on Wednesday denied Conestoga Wood Specialties Corp.'s application to re-argue its challenge of the health care reform law's contraceptive coverage requirement before the court's full roster of active judges.

The East Earl, Pa.-based woodworking company is among the two dozen for-profit, family-owned businesses separately seeking to block the federal government from forcing employers with 50 or more employees to provide cost-free coverage for contraceptive prescriptions and other women's preventative care services under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

The requirement, contained within the reform law's minimum coverage standards for employer-sponsored health benefits, went into effect last August.

Conestoga Wood Specialties' application for a second hearing before the appeals court was voted down by seven of the court's 12 active judges. Last month, a panel of three 3rd Circuit judges rejected the company's initial appeal, in which it had hoped to overturn a lower court's January 11 ruling denying the company's motion for a preliminary injunction barring enforcement of the coverage requirement pending the outcome of the lawsuit.

Having exhausted their opportunities for relief at the appellate level, attorneys representing Conestoga said in an email to Business Insurance that they will petition the Supreme Court of the United States for a reversal of both lower courts' rulings.

“Every American, including family business owners, should be free to live and do business according to their faith,” said Matt Bowman, senior legal counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom, the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based conservative legal group representing Conestoga Wood Specialties. “The cost of religious freedom for the Hahn family, which owns Conestoga Wood Specialties, is the same as the cost to many other job creators across the country who face this mandate: the potential for massive fines that would cripple their businesses and threaten jobs. For this reason, we will be asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review this case.”

Should the Supreme Court decline to grant Conestoga's request for a hearing, the case would revert back to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, where a judge has yet to rule on the actual merits of allegations that the health care reform law's contraceptive coverage requirement violates the company's individual owners' rights to exercise their Christian beliefs, which forbid them to use or provide contraceptive drugs.