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| | Hutterites Must Have Workers' Compensation Insurance According To Montana Supreme Court Ruling.
By Lonce LaMon - January 3, 2013
Hutterites are a religious centered people who live in German speaking communes across the northern states in the U.S. and Canada. They are Protestants similar to the Amish and the Mennonites.
They work predominantly in agriculture but more recently have expanded into construction. They can offer lower job bids than many private businesses.
Now a divided Montana Supreme Court has ruled that requiring a Hutterite religious colony to pay for workers’ compensation insurance for jobs done outside their commune is not an unconstitutional intrusion into their religion. The 4-3 decision upholds a 2009 law that requires religious organizations to carry workers’ compensation insurance.
Hundreds of Hutterite colonies are scattered across Canada, from Manitoba to British Columbia, and in the U.S. from Montana, South Dakota, North Dakota, Minnesota, Washington, and Oregon. There are roughly 50 colonies in Montana with about 100 people to each colony.
The Big Sky Colony of Hutterites in northwestern Montana sued, stating the law targeted its religion and interfered with its beliefs. Its members have no personal property, make no wages, and live a communal life which is central to their religious beliefs.
Justice Brian Morris who wrote for the majority, stated the requirement to have workers’ compensation insurance doesn’t interfere with the Hutterites’ religious practices but only regulates their commercial activities like any other business. He cited many cases including a case about two Native Americans terminated for ingesting peyote and Jimmy Swaggart’s ministry attempting to avoid paying taxes on selling religious merchandise. In these examples the courts had rejected the religious organizations’ arguments that participation in a government program violated their beliefs.
In the dissent, retiring Justice James Nelson wrote the court’s decision violates the U.S. and Montana constitutions by allowing the government to interfere with the beliefs of a religious institution in order to simply appease businesses that believed they are at a competitive disadvantage with the Hutterite laborers. The Hutterites can offer lower job bids.
Justice Nelson wrote, “Apparently… ‘no law’ prohibiting the free exercise of religion does not actually mean ‘no law’ in Montana. Rather, it means no law, except to the extent that the law greases the squeaky wheel of a powerful industry."
Justices Jim Rice and Patricia Cotter also dissented. Rice said the decision gives the appearance that the law applies equally to all employers, but it is specifically targeted at the Hutterites—noting the legislative debate of the bill focused solely on that religious group.
Justice Rice wrote, “Had this been the status of religious freedom in 1620, the Pilgrims may well have sailed right by.”
A Hutterite member can’t make a claim against the colony or take money for himself without risking excommunication. Justice Morris wrote that a colony member could refrain from filing a claim or share a claim award with the rest of the colony, but nothing prevents the colony from excommunicating a member who receives compensation and refuses to turn it over. Thus, there is no interference with the religious practices.
Justice Rice rebutted that such a system would force the Hutterites to pay for insurance for which they would never receive any benefit. It’s the “very definition of illusory coverage that defies logic and violates public policy.”
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