Intent vs. Impact: Recent Landmark Supreme Court Decisions ~ Emerald Quill

Jun 27, 2015

Intent vs. Impact: Recent Landmark Supreme Court Decisions

6/27/2015 Celestine Green No comments

The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest federal court of the United States. In the legal system of the United States, the Supreme Court is the final interpreter of federal constitutional law. This week the court issued three landmark decisions.

The U.S. Supreme Court handed President Barack Obama a major victory on Thursday by upholding tax subsidies crucial to his signature healthcare law, with Chief Justice John Roberts saying Congress clearly intended for them to be available in all 50 states.

In King v. Burwell (June 25, 2015), the court ruled on a 6-3 vote that the 2010 Affordable Care Act (ACA), widely known as Obamacare, did not restrict the subsidies to states that establish their own online healthcare exchanges. It marked the second time in three years that the high court ruled against a major challenge to the law brought by conservatives seeking to gut it.

"Congress passed the Affordable Care Act to improve health insurance markets, not to destroy them," Roberts wrote in the court's decision, adding that nationwide availability of the credits is required to "avoid the type of calamitous result that Congress plainly meant to avoid."

The Obama administration has hailed the law as a success, saying 16.4 million previously uninsured people have gained health insurance since it was enacted.

On the same day that the ACA ruling was issued, the court issued its decision in Texas Dep't of Housing, & Community Affairs v.Inclusive Communities Project, Inc. (June 25, 2015): Claims of housing discrimination based on disparate impact rather than a showing of discriminatory intent may be brought under the Fair Housing Act. To defeat a defense based on business justification or a public interest, a plaintiff must identify an available alternative that serves the defendant's needs and would have less disparate impact. Although this decision got much less airing in the media, it is a landmark decision. In effect the ruling says discrimination may not have been intended in the actions taken, but the effect is discriminatory as evidenced by its disparate impact. This ruling gives further weigh to impact as defense against discrimination under the Fair Housing Law. Oddly enough, the court upheld the ACA based on the intent of the law, while it decreed the intent is also weighed by disparate impact under Fair Housing Act.

SCOTUS issued its ruling on Same Sex Marriage in Obergefell v. Hodges (June 26, 2015): Under the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, all states must license a marriage between two people of the same sex and recognize such a marriage if it was lawfully licensed and performed in another state.

All in all these decisions furthered the cause of equal treatment under the law for all American citizens.