Golinski v. Office of Personnel Management
| Golinski v. Office of Personnel Management | |
|---|---|
| United States District Court for the Northern District of California | |
| Full case name | Karen Golinski, Plaintiff, v. Office of Personnel Management, et al., Defendants. |
| Date decided | February 22, 2012 |
| Citations | 824 F. Supp. 2d 968 |
| Judge sitting | Jeffrey White |
| Case history | |
| Subsequent actions | On appeal in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals (Nos. 12-15388 and 12-15409); Petition for certiorari before judgment in the U.S. Supreme Court (No. 12-16), denied June 27, 2013 |
| Related actions |
|
| Case holding | |
| Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act does not substantially relate to an important government interest or rationally relate to a legitimate government end. | |
| Keywords | |
| Fifth Amendment, Equal protection, Defense of Marriage Act, Same-sex marriage | |
Golinski v. Office of Personnel Management, 824 F. Supp. 2d 968 (N.D. Cal.), was a lawsuit filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. The plaintiff, Karen Golinski, challenged the constitutionality of section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which defined, for the purposes of federal law, marriage as being between one man and one woman, and spouse as a husband or wife of the opposite sex.
On February 22, 2012, the District Court held section 3 unconstitutional. The case was appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The Department of Justice (DOJ), on July 3, 2012, asked the Supreme Court to take the case before the Ninth Circuit decided it, so it could be heard with two other DOMA-related cases, Gill v. Office of Personnel Management and Massachusetts v. United States Department of Health and Human Services.
The Ninth Circuit delayed oral argument pending action by the Supreme Court. Following that Court's decision in United States v. Windsor, the appeal was dismissed on July 23, 2013.
In 2008, when California first extended marriage to same-sex couples, Karen Golinski, an attorney and 19-year employee of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, married Amy Cunninghis. Golinski subsequently applied for family medical insurance coverage through her employer. When the application was denied, she filed a complaint under the Ninth Circuit's Employment Dispute Resolution Plan. Chief Judge Alex Kozinski, in his administrative capacity, ruled in 2009 that she was entitled to spousal health benefits, but the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) announced that it would not comply with the ruling.
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