The Supreme Court of Nevada unanimously ruled on December 23 that the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, 576 U.S. 644 (2015), must be applied retroactively in determining the commencement date of the marital “community” for purposes of dividing assets in a divorce, but such constitutionally-demanded retroactivity extends only to marriages, not to civil unions. LaFrance v. Cline, 2020 WL 7663476, 2020 Nev. Unpub. LEXIS 1209.
Mary Elizabeth LaFrance and Gail … <Read More>
In light of Obergefell v. Hodges, the decision in Taylor v. Brasuell, 2015 WL 4139470 (D. Idaho, July 9, 2015), seems obvious. Taylor is a 74-year-old veteran of the U.S. Navy. She married Jean Mixner in a religious ceremony in 1995, and then the women married again in a legal civil ceremony in California in 2008. Mixner passed away in 2012 and was cremated. Taylor kept the ashes, intending that when the time … <Read More>
They just keep on coming… Hard on the heels of last week’s ruling by a state court judge in Arkansas that the state’s ban on same-sex marriages violates both the state and federal constitutions, a U.S. Magistrate Judge in Boise has ruled in Latta v. Otter that Idaho’s ban violates the 14th Amendment Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses. Chief U.S. Magistrate Judge Candy Wagahoff Dale released her decision late on May 13, issuing an … <Read More>