The Trump Administration, keeping a promise made by Donald Trump during his campaign to leave the issue of restroom and locker room access by transgender students up to state and local officials, issued a letter to all the nation’s school districts on February 22, withdrawing a letter that the Obama Administration Education Department submitted in the Gavin Grimm transgender rights case on January 7, 2015, and a “Dear Colleague” letter sent jointly by the … <Read More>
Continuing an unbroken string of appellate rulings finding that small businesses cannot refuse to supply goods or services for same-sex marriages in jurisdictions that ban sexual orientation discrimination, the nine members of the Supreme Court of the State of Washington unanimously ruled on February 16 that Barronelle Stutzman, proprietor of Arlene’s Flowers, Inc., and her business, violated the Washington Law Against Discrimination (WLAD) and the state’s Consumer Protection Act, and had no constitutional right to … <Read More>
The National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR) filed a petition for certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court on February 13, seeking review of the Arkansas Supreme Court’s decision that the state was not required under Obergefell v. Hodges, 135 S. Ct. 2584 (2015), to extend the presumption of parentage to the same-sex spouse of a birth mother for purposes of recording parentage on a birth certificate. Smith v. Pavan, 2016 WL 7156529 (Ark. … <Read More>
When Justice Antonin Scalia died last February 13, then-candidate Donald Trump said that if he were elected he would appoint somebody in the mold of Scalia to take his place. This was in the context of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s statement, immediately after the announcement of Scalia’s death, that the Republican majority in the Senate would not consider, much less confirm, anyone nominated by President Obama to fill that seat. As far as the … <Read More>
The Court of Appeals of Arizona, Division 1, affirmed a ruling by Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Suzanne E. Cohen, holding that the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, 135 S. Ct. 2584 (2015), does not require Arizona to retroactively deem a woman to be a legal parent of children adopted by her same-sex spouse at a time when Arizona did not recognize their same-sex marriage or allow second-parent adoptions. Judge Jon … <Read More>
Conservatives eager to bring the marriage equality issue back to the U.S. Supreme Court after President Donald J. Trump has had an opportunity to appoint some conservative justices may have found a vehicle to get the issue there in an employee benefits dispute from Houston. On January 20, the Texas Supreme Court announced that it had “withdrawn” its September 2, 2016, order rejecting a petition to review a ruling by the state’s intermediate court of … <Read More>
Does a transgender employee who seeks coverage under her employer’s benefits plans for breast augmentation surgery have a legal remedy if her claims are denied? U.S. District Judge Sidney A. Fitzwater ruled on January 13 that a transgender woman employed by L-3 Communications Integrated Systems (L-3) may pursue a sex discrimination claim under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, having alleged that she was denied such benefits because of her gender, but … <Read More>
Ruling in Cressy v. Proctor, 2016 U.S. App. LEXIS 21973, 2016 WL 7195814 (Dec. 12, 2016), the 2nd Circuit found that U.S. District Judge William K. Sessions III (D. Vt.) did not abuse his discretion in awarding equitable relief on the theory of quantum meruit to Ronald Cressy, who had worked for many years in his partner Kevin Proctor’s business without formal compensation, and who sought payment after the men’s relationship ended, or in … <Read More>
In an eleventh-hour action, U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor (N.D. Texas, Wichita Div.) issued a nationwide preliminary injunction on December 31, barring the federal government from enforcing part of a new regulation that was scheduled to go into effect on January 1, 2017, which interpreted the prohibition on discrimination because of sex under the Affordable Care Act to extend to discrimination because of “gender identity” and “termination of pregnancy.” Franciscan Alliance v. Burwell, Civ. … <Read More>
The Missouri Eastern District Court of Appeals has reversed the jury conviction of Michael L. Johnson, an HIV-positive African-American man, on felony charges of recklessly infecting another with HIV and exposing others to HIV, for which he was sentenced to 30 years in prison. The appeals court found in a December 20 ruling that the prosecution had violated court discovery rules by ambushing Johnson at trial with selective excerpts from recordings of telephone conversations he … <Read More>