Hobby Lobby decision rips the corporate veil

[mississippi62]

The Supreme Court has given Corporations a Gift That They may Live to Regret[/link]

According to a law professor from New York University, Burt Neuborne, “If religious shareholders can do it, why can’t creditors and government regulators pierce the corporate veil in the other direction?” The same question was raised by 44 other law professors who filed a friends-of-the-court brief that implored the Court to reject Hobby Lobby’s argument and keep the corporate veil in place. They argued that, “Allowing a corporation, through either shareholder vote or board resolution, to take on and assert the religious beliefs of its shareholders in order to avoid having to comply with a generally-applicable law with a secular purpose is fundamentally at odds with the entire concept of incorporation. Creating such an unprecedented and idiosyncratic tear in the corporate veil would also carry with it unintended consequences.”

Incorporation exists to distinguish human beings from business entities. Hobby Lobby effectively demolishes the concept by transferring the religious beliefs of the owners to the corporation. Owners can no longer claim protection from legal liability since the corporation-person and the person-person are one and the same.

[Blue Idaho]

1. Two Words

Corporate Manslaughter.

[factsarenotfair]

2. Yes! What they do needs a name! n/t

[Blue Idaho]

3. Seriously - Corporate Manslaughter.

You make a product that has an inherent design flaw, it is revealed that a decision was made to hide the problem and pay out families instead of fixing the problem and boom - the CEO/Business Owner goes to jail.

Corporations are people my friend...

[Ikonoklast]

4. The decision created more problems for the corporations that sued than it solved.

The issue of piercing the veil was raised as soon as the SC decided to take on the case, and the precedence set will not be easily ignored.


If the personal beliefs of the owners of a corporation are allowed to be implemented as corporate policy, the corporation is no longer indistinguishable from the people owning it.

[WolverineDG]

5. Yup yup yup

lots of family lawyers & other lien holders rubbing their hands with glee over this.