On July 7, 2014, plaintiff filed an action in the U.S. District Court for the District of Idaho, under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, against the Idaho Division of Veterans Services. The plaintiff, represented by private counsel and the National Center for Lesbian Rights, alleged that defendant had violated her Fourteenth Amendment rights by refusing to recognize her out-of-state marriage. Specifically, the plaintiff sought declaratory, injunctive, and monetary relief, including an injunction directing defendant to approve her application to have her ashes interred with the ashes of her same-sex spouse at the Idaho State Veterans Cemetery.

Plaintiff was a Navy veteran who married her longtime partner in California in 2008. Following her partner's death in 2012, the plaintiff developed a number of health problems. In December 2013, the plaintiff went to the Idaho State Veteran's Cemetery in Boise to make advanced arrangements for her ashes to be interred with her partner's ashes. The Cemetery declined her request, citing the Idaho Constitution and Idaho Code § 32-201, which provide that a "marriage between a man and a woman is the only domestic union that shall be valid or recognized" in the state.

On September 11, 2014, the plaintiff filed an amended complaint for declaratory and injunctive relief, omitting her request for monetary relief. On October 29, 2014, the defendant filed a motion to dismiss and the plaintiff filed a motion for summary judgment. The court denied defendant's motion to dismiss and granted plaintiff's motion for summary judgment on July 9, 2015, citing the Supreme Court's decision in Obergefell. Taylor v. Brasuell, 2015 WL 4139470, at *4 (D. Idaho July 9, 2015). The court also awarded the plaintiff attorneys' fees of $70,000. The case is now closed.

Priyah Kaul - 12/04/2014
Elizabeth Heise - 11/20/2018


compress summary