U.S. District Judge James S. Gwin rejected a motion to dismiss a sexual orientation discrimination claim asserted by a lesbian employee against an Ohio county in Hutchinson v. Cuyahoga County Board of County Commissioners, 2011 WL 1563874 (N.D. Ohio, April 25, 2011).  Although he dismissed some of plaintiff Shari Hutchinson's claims as time-barred, and also rejected an ancillary claim regarding the amount of monetary credit for opting out of the county's health insurance program, … <Read More>

The Court of Appeals of Minnesota ruled on April 26, 2011, that a district judge had appropriately ordered a lesbian mother who had relocated with her child to Arizona to pay half the costs of transporting the child between Arizona and Minnesota to effectuate the third-party visitation rights of the mother's former  partner.  The unanimous ruling in Hay v. King, 2011 Westlaw 1546586 (unpublished), found that the lack of specific statutory authorization for the award … <Read More>

Montana District Court Judge Jeffrey M. Sherlock has granted the state's motion to dismiss in Donaldson v. State of Montana, Cause No. BDV-2010-702 (April 19, 2011), a suit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Montana on behalf of several same-sex couples seeking equal access to the various rights provided under state law to married different-sex couples through some formal legal status.  Judge Sherlock found that it would be an "inappropriate exercise" of … <Read More>

Ruling on a question of first impression, New York State Supreme Court Justice Lawrence Knipel rejected a motion to dismiss as time-barred an action filed against the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation (HHC) for breach of the state's HIV confidentiality law, Public Health Law Article 27-F, by an HHC employee, finding that a damage claim founded on such a violation did not fall within the scope of the shortened statutory notice and filing requirements applicable … <Read More>

The Delaware Supreme Court may have put an end to a contentious, long-running dispute between former lesbian partners by denying reconsideration to its unanimous decision issued last month in the case of Smith v. Guest, 2011 Westlaw 899550 (March 14, 2011), affirming a ruling by the New Castle County Family Court that the plaintiff was a de facto parent of the child adopted by her former partner and thus entitled to an award of joint … <Read More>

Reversing a three-judge panel and dismissing a suit brought by a gay couple seeking a proper birth certificate for the Louisiana-born child who they had jointly adopted in New York, an en banc majority of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit ruled on April 12 that Louisiana officials had not violated the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the Constitution by refusing to give full effect to a New York adoption decree by listing … <Read More>

A unanimous panel of the New York Appellate Division, First Department, based in Manhattan, ruled on April 8 that opinions rendered last year by New York Supreme Court Justice Louis B. York, rejecting constitutional challenges to the NYC Zoning Resolution concerning location of adult businesses, were so terse that they lacked the necessary findings of fact that would enable the appeals court to determine whether Justice York's conclusions were supported by the factual record in the … <Read More>

In a letter ruling issued to the parties in Shineovich v. Kemp, Multnomah County Case Number 0703-63564, on March 31, 2011, Circuit Judge Katherine Tennyson ruled that Sondra Shineovich and Sarah Kemp were a "same-sex couple" as that term was used by the Oregon Court of Appeals in its precedent-setting decision in Shineovich v. Kemp, 214 P.3d 29 (Or. App., 2009), and thus as Shineovich had consented to donor insemination of Kemp while … <Read More>

Classify this one under "what could he have been thinking?" 

On April 4, the California 4th District Court of Appeal, unanimously reversing a decision by San Diego Superior Court Judge Steven R. Denton, ruled that the San Diego School District was justified in discharging Frank Lampedusa, who had posted a "men seeking men" sex ad on Craigslist that included sexually explicit language and nude photographs showing his genitals and his face. 

Again, what could he … <Read More>

The Arkansas Supreme Court has unanimously ruled that a popularly-enacted statute prohibiting adoptions by adults living in homes where unmarried adults were cohabiting violates the Arkansas Constitution's implicit protection of individual privacy.  The ruling in Arkansas Department of Human Services v. Cole, 2011 Ark. 145 (April 7, 2011), affirmed a decision by Pulaski County Circuit Court Judge Christopher C. Piazza.  Associate Justice Robert L. Brown wrote for the unanimous court.

There has been an ongoing … <Read More>