In my monthly newsletter, Lesbian/Gay Law Notes, I include a section summarizing legislative news, and it occurred to me that as I finish up work on the June issue, I should post a copy of that section of the newsletter on this blog.  Corrections and additions are most welcome, and if received quickly enough might even be incorporated in the June issue of the newsletter.  I am constantly amazed at the sheer volume of legislative … <Read More>

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit has upheld a federal district court ruling ordering Massachusetts officials to provide hormone therapy and gender-appropriate clothing for a civil detainee at the state's Treatment Center for Sexuality Dangerous Persons.  The court found that the state's refusal to provide such treatment, in the face of multiple expert opinions that it is medically necessary and an attempt by the plaintiff to castrate herself, … <Read More>

Ruling on a case with complex, even dismaying, facts, the California 2nd District Court of Appeal ruled May 6 in In re M.C., 2011 Westlaw 1734263, that a Los Angeles County trial court failed to complete the task before it when it concluded that three people had parental claims regarding a child, and that the child should be placed with its maternal grandparents with reunification services offered for all three presumptive parents.  The Court of … <Read More>

Although a same-sex couple cannot get married in New York, they can go to another state that authorizes same-sex marriages and enter into a marriage that will be recognized in New York, and the New York courts will be available to them in case the marriage fails and they seek a divorce.  That is the upshot of a May 18 ruling by New York State Acting Supreme Court Justice John Kelly, of Suffolk County Supreme … <Read More>

Is a foster parent inevitably precluded from being treated as a de facto legal parent of a child?  Not necessarily, ruled the Court of Appeals of Washington, Division 1, in In re Parentage and Custody of A.F.J., 2011 Westlaw 1833461 (May 16, 2011), rejecting a challenge brought by the child's biological mother, who is resisting parenting time for her former same-sex partner.

Mary and Jackie began dating in 2002.  Jackie, unfortunately, developed a crack … <Read More>

Deciding that serving the aims of bankruptcy law was more important than applying a possibly unconstitutional statutory limitation, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Cecelia G. Morris has rejected the United States Trustee's motion to dismiss a joint bankruptcy filing by a New York same-sex couple who were married in Vermont shortly before filing their petition.  The ruling in In re Theresa L. Somers and Rosemary Caggiano, Debtors, 10-38296, was decided on May 4 but first reported in … <Read More>

I spent the weekend in Ithaca, New York, for the Advisory Board Meeting of the Scheinman Institute on Conflict Resolution at Cornell's New York State School of Industrial & Labor Relations.  Cornell ILR is my alma mater, and Marty Scheinman was a classmate.  Now he's a prominent labor arbitrator and mediator and, with his wife Laurie, has become the primary sponsor of this program at Cornell ILR, with one of our favorite professors (and subsequently, dean … <Read More>

The European Court of Justice (Grand Chamber) ruled today that the city of Hamburg was likely violating European Law by providing a pension scheme under which retired married city pensioners receive higher pensions than retired city pensioners who are in a same-sex registered partnership.  The May 10 ruling in the case of R

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, based in Denver, took a narrow view of the confidentiality requirements for medical information under the Americans With Disabilities Act in a decision issued on May 3 upholding a grant of summary judgment to an employer that had arguably required an HIV-positive person to disclose his status to co-workers as a requirement of working in his desired job classification.  The court premised its ruling in EEOC v. … <Read More>

Attorney General Eric Holder, Jr., has personally intervened in a pending immigration case in which a foreign national who is in a same-sex civil union with a U.S. citizen of the same sex is facing removal from the United States.  In Matter of Paul Wilson Dorman, 25 I&N Dec. 485 (A.G. 2011), announced today, May 5, the Attorney General stated:

"Pursuant to my authority set forth in 8 C.F.R. sec. 1003.1(h)(1)(i), I order that … <Read More>