The concept of a corporation as a person may have started as an economic theory. The concept of the corporation as a person is now being translated into the different languages of law and political theory. See Binyamin Appelbaum, "They're Not Like You and Me," p. 14, Sunday New York Times Magazine, Sunday, July 27, 2014.
According to the cited article, the idea that a corporation should be treated as a person in particular ways, includes the idea that if you or I encounter the corporation and do not like the experience, we can go elsewhere. There is a problem with that idea. It is pretty accurate from one economic perspective, but it does not translate well into discussions of constitutional rights.
When we are a purchaser, we certainly can take our money and go down the street to someplace else. When we are a seller and the corporation is the purchaser, however, it is the corporation that decides that it does not need to purchase what we are selling, and the corporation that can take its money and go elsewhere.
When we are employees, we are sellers of our labor and not purchasers. The prospective employer like Hobby Lobby is the purchaser in that situation. If we do not like the exemptions they claim from providing benefits, it is meaningless to say that we can take our labor elsewhere -- particularly if the only other prospective purchasers of our labor, if the only other prospective employers available to us, claim the same exemptions from providing benefits.
So, whoever thought that anyone would say that corporations have faith? That corporations got religion as it were? Or that anyone would hear that good faith and fair dealing would require an exemption from providing insurance benefits to laborers?
QUESTION: My wife wonders whether Hobby Lobby and other employers pay for group health plans that cover drugs for men which can cause side effects that, if they last longer than four hours, the man should see a doctor? But they do not pay insurance premiums for contraceptive coverage? I wonder, too. I'll bet you do, too.
Please Read The Disclaimer. Copyright 2014 by Dennis J. Wall. No claim to original U.S. Government works.
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