WASHINGTON, DC--(Marketwired - Oct 10, 2014) - Judicial Watch announced that it will present oral arguments in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in an appeal of a lawsuit by Kawa Orthodontics LLP, owned by Dr. Larry Kawa, that challenges the Obama administration's delay of the "employer mandate" provisions of the Affordable Care Act, also known as "Obamacare" (Kawa Orthodontics, LLP v. Secretary, U.S. Department of the Treasury, et al. (No. 14-10296)).
Date: Tuesday, October 14, 2014
Time: 9 a.m. ET
Location: Courtroom 339
Elbert P. Tuttle United States Court of Appeals Building
56 Forsyth Street, N.W.
Atlanta, GA
In July 2013, the Obama administration, unilaterally and without consent of Congress, illegally ignored a statutory deadline and announced that the mandate would be delayed until 2015 even though the law expressly requires it to take effect on January 1, 2014. The Obama administration subsequently delayed the mandate a second time. It is now scheduled to take effect in 2016.
Kawa Orthodontics, which is represented by Judicial Watch Inc., sued the U.S. Department of Treasury, the Internal Revenue Service, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, and the Commissioner of the IRS over the delay. This past January, the lawsuit was dismissed on standing grounds by a Florida federal district court judge. Judicial Watch argues simply that its client is no different than any of the other challengers "across the country that were found to have standing to challenge various provisions of the ACA."
In a December 2013 Motion for Summary Judgment, Judicial Watch attorneys, arguing on behalf of Kawa Orthodontics, laid out the core of the case against President Obama's decision to violate the Affordable Care Act:
"This lawsuit raises a single, straightforward legal question: does the Executive Branch have authority to ignore a clear, congressionally-imposed deadline affecting hundreds of thousands of employers and millions of employees across the country on a matter of unquestionable importance? ... The answer to the question posed by this lawsuit is quite plainly 'No.'...[The delay] exceeds [the Obama administration's] statutory jurisdiction, authority, and limitations, is contrary to constitutional right, power, or privilege, and is otherwise not in accordance with law."
Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton, Dr. Larry Kawa, Judicial Watch Director of Litigation Paul Orfanedes, and Judicial Watch Attorney Michael Bekesha will be available to the press at Forsyth and Poplar Sts., NW immediately following the oral arguments.