Windsor v. United States

• Decision Date: 06 June 2012
• Docket Number: No. 10 CIV. 8435 (BSJ).,10 CIV. 8435 (BSJ).
• Citation: 833 F.Supp.2d 394,109 A.F.T.R.2d 2012
• Parties: Edith Schlain WINDSOR, Plaintiff, v. The UNITED STATES of America, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of New York

833 F.Supp.2d 394
109 A.F.T.R.2d 2012-2475

Edith Schlain WINDSOR, Plaintiff,
v.
The UNITED STATES of America, Defendant.

No. 10 CIV. 8435 (BSJ).

United States District Court,
S.D. New York.

June 6, 2012.

Unconstitutional as Applied

1 U.S.C.A. § 7

[833 F.Supp.2d 396]

Roberta Ann Kaplan, Andrew James Ehrlich, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, Alexis Brie Karteron, Arthur Nelson Eisenberg, Melissa Goodman, New York Civil Liberties Union, James Dixon Esseks, ACLU, Rose Ann Saxe, American Civil Liberties Union Foundation, New York, NY, for Plaintiff.

Jean Lin, U.S. Dep't. of Justice, Civil Div., Paul D. Clement, Conor Dugan, H. Christopher Bartolomucci, Bancroft PLLC, Kerry William Kircher, General Counsel, U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, DC, for Defendant.

Order
BARBARA S. JONES, District Judge.

This case arises from Plaintiff's constitutional challenge to section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (“DOMA”), the operation of which required Plaintiff to pay federal estate tax on her same-sex spouse's estate, a tax from which similarly situated heterosexual couples are exempt. Plaintiff claims that section 3 deprives her of the equal protection of the laws, as guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. For the following reasons, Defendant–Intervenor's motion to dismiss is DENIED and Plaintiff's motion for summary judgment is GRANTED.

I. BACKGROUND A. DOMA

DOMA was enacted and signed into law in 1996. The challenged provision, section 3, defines the terms “marriage” and “spouse” under federal law. It provides:

In determining the meaning of any Act of Congress, or of any ruling, regulation, or interpretation of the various administrative bureaus and agencies of the United States, the word ‘marriage’ means only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife, the word ‘spouse’ refers only to a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife.

1 U.S.C. § 7.

In large part, DOMA was a reaction to the possibility that states would begin to recognize legally same-sex marriages. Specifically, Congress was spurred to action by a 1993 decision by the Hawaii Supreme Court, which suggested that same-sex couples might be entitled to marry. Baehr v. Lewin, 74 Haw. 530, 852 P.2d 44 (1993). The House Judiciary Committee's Report on DOMA (“House Report”) discussed Baehr at length, describing it as a “legal assault ... against traditional heterosexual marriage.” H.R.Rep. No. 104–664, at 3 (1996), 1996 U.S.C.C.A.N. 2905, 2908. The Report noted that, if homosexuals were permitted to marry, “that development could have profound practical implications for federal law,” including making homosexual couples “eligible for a whole range of federal rights and benefits.” Id. at 10, 1996 U.S.C.C.A.N. 2905, 2914. A federal definition of marriage was seen as necessary because, the Committee reasoned, never before had the words “marriage” (which, at the time, appeared in 800 sections of federal statutes and regulations) or “spouse” (appearing more than 3,100 times) meant anything other than a union between a man and a woman-an implicit assumption upon which Congress had relied in enacting these statutes and regulations. Id. at 10.

In addition to this notion of “mak[ing] explicit what has always been implicit,” id. at 10, the House Report justified DOMA as advancing government interests in: “(1) defending and nurturing the institution of traditional, heterosexual marriage; (2) defending traditional notions of morality; (3)

[833 F.Supp.2d 397]

protecting state sovereignty and democratic self-governance; ¹ and (4) preserving scarce government resources.” Id. at 12.

B. The Parties

In 1963, Plaintiff in this action, Edie Windsor, met her late-spouse, Thea Spyer, in New York City. Shortly thereafter, Windsor and Spyer entered into a committed relationship and lived together in New York. In 1993, Windsor and Spyer registered as domestic partners in New York City, as soon as that option became available. In 2007, as Spyer's health began to deteriorate due to her multiple sclerosis and heart condition, Windsor and Spyer decided to get married in another jurisdiction that permitted gays and lesbians to marry. They were married in Canada that year.

Spyer died in February 2009. According to her last will and testament, Spyer's estate passed for Windsor's benefit. Because of the operation of DOMA, Windsor did not qualify for the unlimited marital deduction, 26 U.S.C. § 2056(a), and was required to pay $363,053 in federal estate tax on Spyer's estate, which Windsor paid in her capacity as executor of the estate.

On November 9, 2010, Windsor commenced this suit, seeking a refund of the federal estate tax levied on Spyer's estate and a declaration that section 3 of DOMA violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fifth Amendment.

In February 2011, Attorney General Holder announced that the Department of Justice would no longer defend DOMA's constitutionality because the Attorney General and the President believed that a heightened standard of scrutiny should apply to classifications based on sexual orientation, and that section 3 is unconstitutional under that standard. Letter from Eric H. Holder, Jr., Attorney Gen., to John A. Boehner, Speaker, U.S. House of Rep., at 5 (Feb. 23, 2011). Given the Executive Branch's decision not to enforce DOMA, the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group of the U.S. House of Representatives (“BLAG”) moved to intervene to defend the constitutionality of the statute. BLAG's motion was granted on June 2, 2011, 797 F.Supp.2d 320.

On June 24, 2011, Windsor moved for summary judgment, arguing that DOMA is subject to strict constitutional scrutiny because homosexuals are a suspect class. She contends that DOMA fails under that standard of constitutional review because the government cannot establish that DOMA is narrowly tailored to serve a compelling or legitimate government interest. In the alternative, she argues that DOMA has no rational basis.

On August 1, 2011, BLAG moved to dismiss Plaintiff's complaint. It argues that the weight of the precedent compels the Court to review DOMA only for a rational basis and, under that standard, there are ample reasons that justify the legislation. Because the motion to dismiss turns on the same legal question as the motion for summary judgment, the Court will address the two motions simultaneously.

II. DISCUSSION A. Legal Standard

Rule 56 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure provides that a court shall grant a motion for summary judgment “if the pleadings, the discovery and disclosure materials on file, and any affidavits show

[833 F.Supp.2d 398]

that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Bessemer Trust Co., N.A. v. Branin, 618 F.3d 76, 86 (2d Cir.2010) (quoting Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c)). “The party seeking summary judgment bears the burden of establishing that no genuine issue of material fact exists and that the undisputed facts establish her right to judgment as a matter of law.” Rodriguez v. City of New York, 72 F.3d 1051, 1060–61 (2d Cir.1995).

To survive a motion to dismiss pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6), “the operative standard requires the plaintiff [to] provide the grounds upon which [her] claim rests through factual allegations sufficient to raise a right to relief above the speculative level.” Goldstein v. Pataki, 516 F.3d 50, 56 (2d Cir.2008) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). That is, a plaintiff must assert “enough facts to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.” Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007); see Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 1949, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009).

B. Windsor's Standing to Pursue this Suit

As a threshold matter, the Court addresses whether Windsor has standing to pursue this action. “[T]he irreducible constitutional minimum of standing contains three elements. First, the plaintiff must have suffered an ‘injury in fact’—an invasion of a legally protected interest which is (a) concrete and particularized, and (b) actual or imminent, not ‘conjectural’ or ‘hypothetical.’ ” Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560, 112 S.Ct. 2130, 119 L.Ed.2d 351 (1992) (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). Second, the plaintiff must present a “causal connection between the injury and the conduct complained of—the injury has to be fairly ... traceable to the challenged action of the defendant, and not ... the result of the independent action of some third party not before the court.” Id. (internal quotation marks and alterations omitted). Finally, “it must be ‘likely,’ as opposed to merely ‘speculative,’ that the injury will be ‘redressed by a favorable decision.’ ” Id. at 561, 112 S.Ct. 2130.

There is no question that Windsor meets the first and third requirements. BLAG seeks to undermine the second factor by arguing that Windsor has not proved that her marriage was recognized under New York law in 2009, the relevant tax year. In support of this argument, it points to a 2006 case where the New York Court of Appeals held that the “New York Constitution does not compel recognition of marriages between members of the same sex.” Hernandez v. Robles, 7 N.Y.3d 338, 821 N.Y.S.2d 770, 855 N.E.2d 1, 5 (2006).

While the Court acknowledges the Court of Appeals' decision in Hernandez, in light of subsequent state executive action and case law, the Court ultimately finds BLAG's argument unpersuasive. In 2009, all three statewide elected executive official—the Governor, the Attorney General, and the Comptroller—had endorsed the recognition of Windsor's marriage. See Godfrey v. Spano, 13 N.Y.3d 358, 368 n. 3, 892 N.Y.S.2d 272, 920 N.E.2d 328 (N.Y.2009) (describing 2004 informal opinion letters of the Attorney General and the State Comptroller which respectively concluded that “New York law presumptively requires that parties to such [same-sex] unions must be...