The Florida 2nd District Court of Appeal ruled on April 24 in Brandon-Thomas v. Brandon-Thomas, 2015 Fla. App. LEXIS 6051, 2015 WL 1874457, that a same-sex couple that married in Massachusetts but resides in Florida could seek a divorce in a Florida court. The unanimous three-judge panel found that the state had no rational basis for treating such a marriage differently from other out-of-state marriages. The ruling reverses a 2013 decision by Lee County Circuit Judge John E. Duryea, Jr., who dismissed the divorce petition filed by Danielle Brandon Thomas.
Danielle and Krista Brandon Thomas married in Massachusetts in 2012 and subsequently relocated to Florida. They have a child, for whom Krista is the birth mother. According to the Per Curiam opinion issued by the Court of Appeal, “the marriage soured” after they relocated to Florida and Danielle filed a divorce petition in October 2013. In her petition, Danielle asked the court to “determine parental responsibility and child support issues, as well as equitable distribution.”
Why would Krista oppose the divorce petition? In her motion to dismiss the petition, she “alleged that she was both the birth mother and genetic mother of the child and that Danielle therefore had no standing to request shared parental responsibility or child support.” It seems that Krista hoped by defeating the divorce petition to avoid a court ruling that Danielle was entitled to exercise parental rights to the child, or a court ruling requiring a division of assets.
The trial court based its dismissal on Florida’s Defense of Marriage Act and a state constitutional amendment that forbids recognition of same-sex marriages. At the time the trial court ruled, those provisions had yet to be declared unconstitutional. But after the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 2013 decision striking down part of the federal Defense of Marriage Act, several lawsuits were filed by same-sex couples in Florida seeking both the right to marry and the right to recognition of out-of-state marriages. Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi has energetically opposed these lawsuits and appealed adverse rulings. However, on December 19, 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected her petition to stay a federal trial court ruling finding the Florida laws unconstitutional under the 14th Amendment, and same-sex couples began marrying in Florida early on January 6, 2015.
Surprisingly, the Per Curiam opinion by the court doesn’t mention any of this marriage litigation and doesn’t purport to base its ruling on the federal decisions, although they are mentioned in a concurring opinion by Judge Edward C. LaRose. Instead of issuing a ruling that, of course, Florida courts can decide divorce cases for married same-sex couples because same-sex marriage is now legal in Florida, the court ruled as if the status of those Florida laws relied upon by Krista has not changed.
Instead, the court based its decision on the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which provides: “Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State.” After noting that Florida courts have not treated “sexual orientation” as a “suspect classification,” the court said that “the right of a same-sex couple to seek a dissolution of marriage in Florida, when they were validly married in another state but now live in Florida, is not a fundamental right for federal constitutional purposes. Thus, Florida bears the burden of presenting only a rational basis for its classification.”
The court found that neither Krista, in opposing the divorce petition, nor the state, which intervened to advance its view that Florida courts may not recognize out-of-state marriages, even for the purpose of dissolving them, had failed to present such a “rational basis” for the Florida laws forbidding recognition of same-sex marriages.
“Krista refers to ‘a societal inducement for opposite-sex couples to marry, thus decreasing the percentage of children accidentally conceived outside of a stable, long-term relationship,’” commented the court. “But this argument seems to ignore the biological fact that same-sex couples do not contribute to the problem of children ‘accidentally conceived’ outside of a stable, long-term relationship because, as a matter of pure biology, same-sex couples simply cannot ‘accidentally conceive’ children.” This comment seems ironic, since prior to the recent surge of marriage equality decisions, several courts, including New York’s highest, had relied on the biological impossibility of same-sex couples accidentally conceiving children as a justification for the state providing marriage for different-sex couples but not same-sex couples. Now the tables are turned!
Attorney General Bondi argued that “Florida’s refusal to recognize same-sex marriage furthers Florida’s long-standing history of defining marriage as being between a man and a woman.” The court pointed out that refusing to give divorces to married same-sex couples living in Florida “seemingly contravenes Florida’s public policy.”
“If the policy is to prevent, eliminate, discourage, or otherwise preclude same-sex marriage in Florida, permitting the courts to dissolve same-sex marriages that have been previously entered into in other states would arguably further that policy by reducing the number of same-sex married couples in Florida,” the court wrote, stating that the Attorney General had failed to identify a “public purpose” that is served by denying divorces to such couples.
The court was disturbed by the practical impact of the trial court’s order dismissing the case, which is to deprive Danielle and the child of a judicial forum for determining what custody and visitation and child-support arrangements should be. “The fact that a child is involved implicates Florida’s strong public policy to protect children by determining custody matters in accordance with the best interests of the child,” the court concluded.
In his concurring opinion, Judge Darryl C. Casanueva emphasized an alternative theory for finding jurisdiction: a right of access to the courts to determine the legal rights and responsibilities of parties upon the break-up of a marriage. Same-sex couples married out-of-state are similarly situated with different-sex couples married out of state and equally in need of access to Florida courts to dissolve their marriages. The judge pointed out that the U.S. Supreme Court had found a due process violation in the past when a state imposed significant fee barriers to couples seeking access to the courts for divorces, making them practically unavailable for poor people. Thus, the right of access for a divorce is encompassed within the liberty protected by the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment.
Furthermore, he argued, this case wasn’t about same-sex marriage. “A divorce proceeding does not involve recognition of a marriage as an ongoing relationship,” he wrote. “Indeed, accepting that a valid marriage exists plays no role except as a condition precedent to granting a divorce. After the condition is met, the laws regarding divorce apply. Laws regarding marriage play no role.”
Judge Edward C. LaRose also concurred, emphasizing that the state’s statutory marriage recognition ban would have “minimal application to a case involving a divorce of a same-sex couple validly married in another state.” While mentioning the federal marriage equality developments in Florida, Judge LaRose did not rely on them to reach his conclusion. But in noting the practical impact of the trial court’s order, he pointed out that 37 states and the District of Columbia now have same-sex marriage. “Although divorce does not inevitably follow marriage,” he wrote, “we should anticipate that many married same-sex couples, unfortunately, will need to dissolve their unions. It is hard to fathom that the legislators who passed [Florida’s recognition ban] envisioned a scenario where assets remain unmarketable for lack of an equitable distribution. Nor could they have reasonably anticipated a system that disregards the best interests of a child raised and nurtured in a same-sex home. There can be no question but that Florida has a compelling interest in protecting children subject to its jurisdiction.”
Surprisingly, the court never mentioned the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in its opinion. Although the Supreme Court declared part of DOMA unconstitutional in 2013, it left untouched Section 2, which provides that states are not required to give “full faith and credit” to same-sex marriages contracted in other states. Thus, in DOMA Congress gave Florida permission to withhold recognition from same-sex marriages such as that of Danielle and Krista. Although many commentators have suggested that Section 2 of DOMA is unconstitutional, most of the litigation about marriage recognition over the past two years has virtually ignored it, as did the Florida court in this case.
The second question certified for review by the Supreme Court when it decides the pending marriage equality cases, Obergefell v. Kashich, was whether states are constitutionally required to recognize same-sex marriages from other states. In Thomas v. Thomas, the Florida 2nd District Court of Appeal has answered this question in the affirmative.
Attorneys Luis E. Insignares and Brian J. Kruger of Fort Myers represent Danielle and Michael E. Chionopoulos of Fort Myers represents Krista. The case will be returned to the Lee County Circuit Court for a hearing on Danielle’s divorce petition.