Justices side with religious hospitals in pension dispute
WASHINGTON (AP) — Religious hospitals don’t have to comply with federal laws protecting pension plans, a unanimous Supreme Court ruled Monday in a case that affects retirement benefits for roughly a million workers nationwide.
The justices sided with three church-affiliated nonprofit hospital systems being sued for underfunding their employee pension plans.
The hospitals — two with Catholic affiliation and one with Lutheran ties — had argued that their pensions are “church plans” that are exempt from the law and have been treated as such for decades by federal officials.
Workers asserted that Congress never meant to exempt massive hospital systems that employ tens of thousands of workers. They said the hospitals are dodging legal safeguards that could jeopardize their benefits.
Pension plans are required to be fully funded and insured under federal law, but Congress carved out narrow exemptions for churches and other religious organizations. The hospitals claimed the law also exempts plans associated with or controlled by a church, whether or not it was created by a church in the first place.
Writing for the court, Justice Elena Kagan said a pension plan operated by a religiously affiliated hospital is exempt from the law “regardless of who established it.”
The federal government has long agreed with the hospitals’ understanding of the law. Agencies including the IRS and the Labor Department have assured them for more than 30 years that they are exempt from traditional pension rules.
But three federal appeals courts had ruled against the hospitals — California-based Advocate Health Care Network, Illinois-based Dignity Health and New Jersey-based Saint Peter’s Healthcare System. The hospitals appealed, warning that the rulings could expose them to billions of dollars in liability.
Together, the three hospitals employ about 100,000 workers. But about a million workers around the country work for similar nonprofits that have been exempt from pension funding requirements.
In one of the cases, workers allege that Dignity Health — the fifth-largest provider of health care in the country — has underfunded its pension plan by $1.2 billion.
Justice Neil Gorsuch did not participate in the ruling, which was argued before he joined the court.
Justices will review police use of cellphone tower data
WASHINGTON (AP) — In a new case about digital age technology and privacy, the Supreme Court will consider whether police need warrants to review cellphone towers records that help them track the location of criminal suspects.
The justices agreed Monday to hear an appeal from Timothy Carpenter, who was sentenced to 116 years in prison after being convicted of armed robberies in Michigan and Ohio.
Police obtained records from cellular service providers that placed Carpenter’s cellphone in the vicinity of the robberies.
The question is whether police should have to demonstrate to a judge that they have good reason, or probable cause, to believe Carpenter was involved in the crime. Police obtained the records by meeting a lower standard of proof.
Courts around the country have wrestled with the issue. The most relevant Supreme Court case is nearly 40 years old, before the dawn of the digital age.
The federal appeals court in Cincinnati ruled that police did not need a judge-issued warrant.
Nathan Freed Wessler, the American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who represents Carpenter, said the high court should apply constitutional privacy protections to digital records. “Because cell phone location records can reveal countless private details of our lives, police should only be able to access them by getting a warrant based on probable cause,” Wessler said.
The robberies took place at Radio Shack and T-Mobile stores in 2010 and 2011. Carpenter organized most of the robberies, in which he signaled the others in his group to enter the stores with their guns drawn, the government said in its Supreme Court filing. Customers and employees were herded to the back and the robbers filled their bags with new smartphones. They got rid of the guns and sold the phones, the government said.
Police learned of Carpenter’s involvement after a confession by another person involved in the holdups. They got an order for cellphone tower data for Carpenter’s phone, which shows which towers a phone has connected with when used in a call. The records help approximate someone’s location.
The case, Carpenter v. U.S., 16-402, will be argued in the fall.
High court limits seizure of assets from drug conspiracies
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is limiting the government’s ability to seize assets from people who are convicted of drug crimes but receive little of the illegal proceeds.
The justices ruled Monday that a Tennessee man convicted for his role selling iodine water purification filters to methamphetamine makers does not have to forfeit nearly $70,000 in profits.
Terry Honeycutt helped sell more than 20,000 filters at his brother’s hardware store. Prosecutors said the brothers knew the iodine was used by local meth cooks.
Honeycutt’s brother pleaded guilty and forfeited $200,000 of the $270,000 in profits. But Honeycutt argued he wasn’t responsible for the rest since he didn’t personally see any profits.
A federal appeals court ruled against Honeycutt, saying everyone who joins a drug conspiracy can be required to give up profits.
Justices limit recovery in securities fraud cases
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is making it tougher for the government to recover ill-gotten gains from people convicted of securities fraud.
The justices were unanimous Monday in ruling that such recoveries are subject to a five-year statute of limitations.
The ruling could hamstring prosecutors from collecting huge sums of money in cases where alleged fraud has been going on for decades before authorities file charges.
The high court overturned a lower court decision that ordered venture capitalist Charles Kokesh to pay the Securities and Exchange Commission $35 million from investor funds he used to pay himself and others at his New Mexico-based operation from 1995 to 2006.
Lawyers for Kokesh had argued that the five-year window would reduce his payment to just $5 million.
Justices affirm ruling striking NC legislative districts
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court has upheld a lower court ruling that struck down 28 state House and Senate districts in North Carolina because they violated the rights of black voters. But the justices rejected the court’s order to redraw the districts and hold a special election.
ustices Monday sends the matter back to the lower court, which could order new districts in time for the regular cycle of elections in 2018.
Democrats hope new district maps will help them break the Republican stranglehold on the state legislature.
Democrats need to capture three House seats or six Senate seats currently held by Republicans to eliminate the GOP’s veto-proof majorities. That would enhance the power of Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper.
A panel of three federal judges in North Carolina that struck down the districts as illegal racial gerrymanders had ordered the drawing of new districts in time for special elections this year. But the Supreme Court blocked the order for the new districts. The matter is back in the hands of the lower court.
The action by the j
The high court’s action follows last month’s ruling in which the justices struck down two North Carolina congressional districts because they diminished the voting strength of the state’s black residents.
The districts were initially drawn in 2011 when Republicans controlled the legislature and the governor’s office. Civil rights groups and black voters challenged the districts, complaining that they packed too many black voters into some districts to make surrounding districts whiter and thus more likely to elect Republicans.
Cooper defeated Republican Gov. Pat McCrory in November.
