Gill v. Office of Personnel Management
| Gill v. Office of Personnel Management | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Court | United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit |
| Full case name | Nancy Gill and Marcelle Letourneau, et al., Plaintiffs, v. Office of Personnel Management, et al., Defendants. |
| Citation(s) | 682 F.3d 1 |
| Case history | |
| Prior action(s) | 699 F.Supp.2d 374 (D.Mass. 2010) |
| Subsequent action(s) | Petition for certiorari filed with the U.S. Supreme Court (No. 12-13); denied June 27, 2013 |
| Related action(s) |
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| Holding | |
| Section 3 of DOMA fails a less-deferential rational basis review on Equal Protection Clause claims; the Spending Clause and Tenth Amendment do not proscribe DOMA, but they do influence the analysis of DOMA's justifications under equal protection review. | |
| Court membership | |
| Judge(s) sitting | Sandra Lynch, Chief Judge, Juan R. Torruella and Michael Boudin, Circuit Judges |
| Case opinions | |
| Majority | Boudin, joined by Torruella and Lynch |
| Laws applied | |
| U.S. Const. amend. V, XIV; Defense of Marriage Act | |
Gill et al. v. Office of Personnel Management, 682 F.3d 1 (1st Cir. 2012) is a United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit decision that affirmed the judgment of the District Court for the District of Massachusetts in a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), the section that defines the term "marriage" as "a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife" and "spouse" as "a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife."
The trial began on May 6, 2010, and was heard by District Judge Joseph Louis Tauro. On July 8, Tauro ruled section 3 of DOMA unconstitutional in a summary judgment. He later stayed the implementation of his decision pending appeal, and the Department of Justice (DOJ) filed an appeal on October 12, 2010.
In May 2012, the First Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously affirmed Tauro's ruling that section 3 of DOMA is unconstitutional. On June 29, the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group (BLAG), an arm of the U.S. House of Representatives that is defending the suit, asked the Supreme Court to review the case. The DOJ did so on July 3 and the plaintiffs' attorneys did so on August 2. The United States Supreme Court denied those petitions on June 27, 2013, in the wake of its landmark decision in Windsor v. United States that Section 3 of DOMA was unconstitutional.
The original plaintiffs were 8 same-sex couples and three widowers, all of whom had married in Massachusetts. They claimed that various government agencies had denied their applications for benefits that would have been granted to similarly situated different-sex couples or the surviving spouse of such a marriage. Their specific claims covered:
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