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The businesswoman at the center of the Supreme Court case challenging federal health reform has closed her auto-repair shop and filed bankruptcy, raising questions about whether she still has standing to sue, The Wall Street Journal reports.
Mary Brown of Panama City, Fla. argued that President Obama's signature health overhaul would harm her because it would require her to divert revenue from her auto shop to purchase health insurance for her employees or pay a tax penalty.
It's this core requirement, the insurance mandate, that 26 states, including Utah, and the National Federation of Independent Business challenged last year as unconstitutional. The multistate case is one of multiple challenges to the law, which have yielded conflicting rulings. The case was handpicked by the high court to settle the dispute.
Brown closed her shop Brown & Dockery Inc. in August, later filed bankruptcy with her husband and is collecting unemployment, according to The Journal. Due to her financial woes she is likely exempt from the insurance mandate and could actually benefit from the law's subsidies for purchasing coverage.
Legal scholars interviewed by The Journal offer conflicting opinions as to whether Brown's new circumstances could undermine the case.
More than a dozen lawsuits filed against the health law, the bulk of which doesn't take effect until 2014, have been dismissed for lack of standing.
But Lincoln Nehring, a lawyer and health policy analyst at Voices for Utah Children, believes that "in annals of legal history this will be yet another interesting footnote" but little more.
Because of the case's high-profile nature, the court will likely do whatever it takes to find standing, he said. "The Supreme Court had ample, and easier, opportunity to punt. They didn't, so I expect the case will march on."
Utah Assistant Attorney General John Swallow could not immediately be reached for comment. But in the past he has said laws passed in Utah and Idaho outlawing federal health reform give all states standing in the case.
Oral arguments are expected to come as early as February with a decision in June.
The high court has agreed to weigh the constitutionality of the mandate and the law's proposed expansion of Medicaid.
Justices will also mull whether the law can be severed from the mandate, meaning it could survive without it, and whether legal challenges are premature.
kstewart@sltrib.comTwitter: @kirstendstewart