On January 5, 2012, several same-sex couples in long-term, committed relationships filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan against the State of Michigan. The plaintiffs, represented by the national and state ACLU and by private counsel, filed suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and the Declaratory Judgment Act, claiming that Michigan Public Act 297 of 2011 (the "Public Employee Domestic Partner Benefit Restriction Act"), violated their rights under the Fourteenth Amendment. Specifically, plaintiffs alleged that "by stripping family health care benefits only from the committed same-sex domestic partners of certain gay and lesbian public employees within the State of Michigan while allowing public employees' other family members access to such benefits, and by preventing public employers from offering such benefits to employees' same-sex domestic partners in the future," the State was in violation of the equal protection clause and the substantive component of the due process clause. Plaintiffs sought declaratory and injunctive relief.

On March 2, 2012, the State moved to dismiss the complaint, and on March 7, the plaintiffs moved for a preliminary injunction. A hearing on both motions was held on August 7. Almost a year later, and following the Supreme Court's ruling in U.S. v. Windsor, the court granted in part and denied in part the defendant's motion to dismiss and granted the plaintiffs' motion for a preliminary injunction (2013 WL 3285111). The court dismissed the plaintiffs' due process claim, but allowed their equal protection claim to proceed. The preliminary injunction forbade enforcement of Michigan Public Act 297 while the litigation was ongoing.

In mid February 2014, both the State and the plaintiffs filed motions for summary judgment. The court [Judge David M. Lawson] granted the plaintiff's request for summary judgment on November 12, 2014, and granted a permanent injunction of the Michigan Public Act 297 of 2011.

Christopher Schad - 08/27/2012
Jonathan Forman - 07/25/2013
Benjamin St. Pierre - 11/02/2014


compress summary