Missouri law provides that the surviving spouse of a public employee who is killed in the line of duty be entitled to a death benefit equal to half of the deceased employee’s final average compensation. The statute, adopted in 1969, did not define “spouse,” but was supplemented in 2004 with a definition of “spouse” in accord with the newly-enacted state constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.
When a Missouri state highway patrolman, Corporal Dennis Engelhard, was … <Read More>
On October 17, two different panels of the Michigan Court of Appeals ruled in cases where lesbian co-parents were battling over child custody. In one, a birth mother prevailed because the court refused to recognize the couple’s Canadian same-sex marriage. In the other, however, the court found that the state’s full-faith-and-credit obligation required recognition of an out-of-state second-parent adoption that could not have been done in-state, and affirmed a sole custody award to the second … <Read More>
On September 18 a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral argument in Smithkline Beecham Company v. Abbott Laboratories, an anti-trust case concerning the pricing of an HIV drug for which Abbott holds the patent. (An audio recording of the argument is available on the 9th Circuit’s website.) During jury selection at the trial, it appeared that counsel for Abbott used a peremptory challenge to eliminate a potential juror who is … <Read More>
Two weeks after same-sex marriages resumed in California on June 28, the Proponents of Proposition 8 filed a petition with the California Supreme Court, seeking a stay of Judge Vaughn Walker’s 2010 Order and contesting the right of anyone other than the two same-sex couples who brought the federal court challenge against Prop 8 to benefit from that Order. The Proponents, represented by attorneys from the misnamed Alliance Defending Freedom, an Arizona and D.C. based … <Read More>
I use the term “multicultural” in a special sense here, not referring to different ethnicities but rather to different forms of our modern entertainment culture – major league baseball, musical theater, and major Hollywood motion pictures! My Friday and Saturday this past weekend combined these three different cultural experiences.
First up: Major League Baseball. As a delayed birthday present, my usual theater and concert-going companion arranged to buy skybox tickets at Yankee Stadium for Friday’s … <Read More>
The New York Philharmonic was off on a tour last month, then returned to dedicate June to “Alan Gilbert’s Playlist,” the idea that the season would close with a selection of conductor Gilbert’s favorites. But first, there was a distinguished young guest conductor, Lionel Bringuier, to present a bit of a grab-bag program of mainly lighter works that was sheer fun to hear. I attended the Saturday performance on June 15.
The concert got off … <Read More>
No, it's not quite what you may think from reading the headline. Although the 8th Circuit did affirm a grant of summary judgment to the employer in a case in which a job applicant alleged discrimination based on gender identity in violation of Title VII's ban on sex discrimination in employment, it was not because the Circuit sharply departed from the growing body of precedent accepting such claims. Rather, the court found in Hunter v. … <Read More>
The Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group of the U.S. House of Representatives (BLAG), Intervenor-Defendant, filed a petition for certiorari with the Supreme Court on June 29, seeking review of the 1st Circuit
The ACLU has filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina seeking a declaration that North Carolina