Labor & Employment Law

Two 9th Circuit Judges Order Benefits for Same-Sex Spouses of Court Employees

Leonard Link reports:

In two opinions posted to the website of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit on February 4, judges of the court ruling on internal grievances filed by employees of the judicial branch within the 9th Circuit ordered the court administrators to process requests that same-sex spouses of the employees be included in the federal benefits plan governing their employment. The decisions are not official 9th Circuit court opinions, but provide unusual insight into what at least these two circuit court judges think about the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and its relationship to the constitutional rights of LGBT public employees.

The circuit has its own non-discrimination policy, which covers sex and sexual orientation, among other things, and applies to the terms and conditions of employment of its staff, and an internal dispute resolution policy that culminates in an appeal to a single member of the court. The same system, in parallel, applies to employees of the federal public defenders offices in the 9th Circuit. In these two cases, In the Matter of Karen Golinski and In the Matter of Brad Levenson, employees covered by this system married same-sex partners in California during the window of opportunity prior to the passage of Proposition 8 (which amended the California Constitution to provide that only different-sex marriages were valid or recognized in California), and each sought to have their partner included under their employee benefits plans as spouses. The benefits administrators in both cases took the position that because of DOMA, which includes a provision forbidding the recognition of same-sex partners for purposes of federal law, these spouses could not be considered "spouses" as the term is used in the statute authorizing employee benefits for federal court personnel.

For the rest of the story, Two 9th Circuit Judges Order Benefits for Same-Sex Spouses of Court Employees.

Full post as published by Ross' Employment Law Blog on February 05, 2009 (boomark / email).