Standing Watch

In what could be a landmark ruling by the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, the Court has ordered the Office of the Federal Public Defender for the Central District of California last Wednesday to pay a monetary award to a man denied health care benefits to his same-sex spouse.  Brad Levenson, Deputy Federal Public Defender, brought the suit requesting the Court to direct the FPD to obtain separate coverage for his spouse by contracting with private insurers or issue a monetary award in accordance with the Back Pay Act.

The case has been remanded to the lower court to determine the monetary award.

Judge Stephan Reinhardt, the presiding justice in the case, reasoned that “To the extent that the application of DOMA serves to preclude the provision of health coverage to a same-sex spouse of a legally married federal employee because of the employee’s and his or her spouse’s sex or sexual orientation, DOMA as applied contravenes the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution and is therefor unconstitutional”

Levenson’s suit was based on an earlier ruling last February, instructing the Administrative Office of the United States Courts to secure the benefits to which Levenson’s spouse is entitled as a legally married couple in the State of California.  That order also determined that denying Levenson’s spouse benefits violated the anti-discrimination provisions of the EDR Plan, as well as the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause.  The Administrative Office began to take action, but was blocked by the Office of Personnel Management, who cited DOMA in order to block execution of the Court’s order.

It is not known if the government will appeal the decision or not.

Here is the PDF document with the decision: http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2009/11/18/0980172o.pdf