Unless you were living under a rock last week, you are probably already aware of the Supreme Court's activities. In King v. Burwell, the Supreme Court denied a challenge to the Affordable Care Act's ("ACA") premium subsidies for the Marketplace Exchanges in states that had not established their own exchange.
Although Republican senators have introduced at least 50 bills to try to overturn the ACA, none of them have garnered bipartisan support. The King case is the second major Supreme Court defeat in three years for opponents of the law. Like it or not, it looks like it is here to stay. For those opposed to the law, you might take some joy in Justice Scalia's dissent where he actually manages to use the phrase "interpretive jiggery-pokery." I don't remember that phrase coming up in law school, but then again, I'm not a Supreme Court Justice so I'll defer to the Justice on that one.
The other major decision that was handed down on Friday was in Obergefell v. Hodges. In this landmark decision, the Supreme Court decided that the right to marry was a fundamental right that could not be denied to same-sex couples. It is now the law of the land that same-sex couples can marry. This means that same-sex marriage is now legal in all 50 states and regardless of where a couple was married, that marriage must be recognized by the state in which the couple currently reside.
The implication to this is any franchisor or franchisee employment policy that provides benefits for spouses must provide those benefits to same-sex and heterosexual married couples. Not only should policies be updated, but employees should be educated on these changes to insure compliance with laws such as the Family and Medical Leave Act as well as the employer's policies.
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