Caspar v. Snyder

• Decision Date: 15 January 2015
• Docket Number: Case No. 14–CV–11499.
• Citation: 77 F.Supp.3d 616
• Parties: Marsha CASPAR, et al., Plaintiffs, v. Richard SNYDER, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Michigan

77 F.Supp.3d 616

Marsha CASPAR, et al., Plaintiffs

v.Richard SNYDER, et al., Defendants.

Case No. 14–CV–11499.

United States District Court, E.D. Michigan, Southern Division.

Signed Jan. 15, 2015.

Jay Kaplan, American Civil Liberties Union Fund of Michigan, Detroit, MI, for Plaintiffs.

OPINION AND ORDER (1) GRANTING PLAINTIFFS' MOTION FOR A PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION (Dkt. 17), AND (2) DENYING DEFENDANTS' MOTIONS FOR A STAY (Dkt. 20), TO DISMISS (Dkt. 21), AND TO CONSOLIDATE CASES (Dkt. 27)

MARK A. GOLDSMITH, District Judge.

I. INTRODUCTION

The fundamental question in this case is whether officials of the State of Michigan are violating the United States Constitution by refusing to recognize the marital status of same-sex couples whose marriages were solemnized pursuant to Michigan marriage licenses issued in accordance with Michigan law in effect at the time of the marriages. This Court concludes that the continued legal validity of an individual's marital status in such circumstances is a fundamental right comprehended within the liberty protected under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Even though the court decision that required Michigan to allow same-sex couples to marry has now been reversed on appeal, the same-sex couples who married in Michigan during the brief period when such marriages were authorized acquired a status that state officials may not ignore absent some compelling interest—a constitutional hurdle that the defense does not even attempt to surmount. In these circumstances, what the state has joined together, it may not put asunder.

For the reasons discussed fully below, the Court grants a preliminary injunction requiring the recognition of such marriages and rejects the defense efforts to dismiss, stay, or consolidate this case.

II. BACKGROUND

Plaintiffs are eight same-sex couples who were married during a brief window of time—lasting only a few hours on March 22, 2014—one day after the decision of another judge of this District holding that Michigan's refusal to authorize same-sex marriage was unconstitutional. See DeBoer v. Snyder, 973 F.Supp.2d 757 (E.D.Mich.2014) (Friedman, J.). That district court decision followed a nine-day bench trial addressing whether Michigan's ban on same-sex marriage violated the due-process and equal-protection guarantees of the United States Constitution. The ban is embodied in a state constitutional amendment adopted by a voter referendum in 2004, as well as in earlier-adopted state statutory provisions.¹ Applying rational-basis review, the district court concluded that the ban denied same-sex couples the equal protection of the laws, because the ban did not advance any conceivable legitimate state interest. Id. at 768. The district court did not address the DeBoer defendants' conditional request for a stay pending appeal in the event of an adverse ruling, which was orally made at the close of the trial.

That late Friday-afternoon decision prompted four local county clerks to open their offices the next day, waive the traditional three-day waiting period, and immediately issue marriage licenses. Plaintiffs were among some 300 same-sex couples who received licenses and solemnized their marriages that Saturday. The window during which same-sex marriage was lawful in Michigan closed abruptly on Saturday afternoon, when the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit issued a temporary stay (later converted to a full stay pending appeal) of the district court's decision. See DeBoer v. Snyder, No. 14–1341, 3/22/14 Order at 1 (Dkt. 11–2) (“To allow a more reasoned consideration of the motion to stay, it is [ordered] that the district court's judgment [be] temporarily stayed until Wednesday, March 26, 2014.”); id., 3/25/14 Order at 3 (Dkt. 22–1) (granting the defendants' “motion to stay the district court's order pending final disposition of [the defendants'] appeal by this court”).

Following issuance of the full stay, Michigan Governor Richard Snyder, a defendant in both DeBoer and this action, announced a policy of refusing to recognize the marriages for any purpose under the law, while conceding that the marriages had been lawfully entered into in accordance with Michigan law in effect at the time of the marriages:

After comprehensive legal review of state law and all recent court rulings, we have concluded that same-sex couples were legally married at county clerk offices in the time period between U.S. District Judge Friedman's ruling and the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals temporary stay of that ruling.

In accordance with the law, the U.S. Circuit Court's stay has the effect of suspending the benefits of marriage until further court rulings are issued on this matter. The couples with certificates of marriage from Michigan courthouses last Saturday were legally married and the marriage was valid when entered into. Because the stay brings Michigan law on this issue back into effect, the rights tied to these marriages are suspended until the stay is lifted or Judge Friedman's decision is upheld on appeal.

Compl. ¶ 36 (3/26/14 Written Statement of Governor's Office) (Dkt. 1). The Governor reiterated the policy at a press conference shortly after his written statement was issued:

[F]irst of all, in respect to the marriages themselves, the 300 marriages on that Saturday, we believe those are legal marriages and valid marriages. The opinion had come down. There had not been a stay in place. So with respect to the marriage events on that day, those were done in a legal process and were legally done.

The stay being issued that next night really makes it more complicated and that's why I asked you to bear with me-is, although the marriages were legal, what the stay does is reinstate Michigan law, and under Michigan law, it says the State of Michigan will not recognize the fact that they're married because they're of the same sex. So what we have is a situation here where the legal marriages took place on Saturday but, because of the stay that the operation of law is such that we won't recognize the benefits of that marriage until there's a removal of the stay or there's an upholding of the judge's opinion by the Court of Appeals or a higher court.

Compl. ¶ 37.

Plaintiffs then filed this action alleging due-process and equal-protection violations against four state officials in their official capacities: the Governor and the heads of three executive departments with responsibilities over benefits that Plaintiffs claim will be impaired by the non-recognition policy. Plaintiffs allege intangible harms, such as loss of dignity, id. ¶ 98, feelings of “uncertainty and anxiety,” id. ¶ 46, “disappointment,” id. ¶ 60, loss of “peace of mind,” id. ¶ 71, as well as “hurt” and “dishearten[ment],” id. ¶ 77. They also allege more tangible harms. Several Plaintiffs applied for health-insurance benefits based on their marital status, only to be told by their employers that the applicants could not be recognized as married under their insurance plans because of the state's non-recognition policy. Id. ¶¶ 65, 75. Other Plaintiffs allege impairment of their efforts to adopt children together, because Michigan will not allow two single persons to adopt jointly the same child. Id. ¶¶ 54, 73. Still others allege loss of spousal-pension benefits, id. ¶ 59, state income-tax benefits, id. ¶ 70, and financial-aid benefits, id. ¶ 83.

Plaintiffs filed a motion for a preliminary injunction (Dkt. 17), seeking an order requiring Defendants to recognize their marriages and the marriages of the other same-sex couples who were married before the issuance of the Sixth Circuit stay. Defendants opposed the motion (Dkt. 22), claiming principally that the Sixth Circuit stay reinstituted Michigan's ban on same-sex marriage, and that the continued validity of Plaintiffs' marriages was tied to the ultimate appellate disposition of DeBoer . Defendants also filed a motion to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1) and (6) (Dkt. 21), raising several other defenses, including Eleventh Amendment immunity, standing, ripeness, failure to state a claim, and the absence of sufficient grounds for declaratory relief. In addition, Defendants filed a motion for a stay of this action until resolution of the appeal in DeBoer (Dkt. 20), as well as a motion to consolidate this case with a separate case pending before another judge of this District, Blankenship v. Snyder, No. 14–12221 (Dkt. 27).

The Sixth Circuit has now spoken in DeBoer. DeBoer v. Snyder, 772 F.3d 388 (6th Cir.2014). It reversed the district court's decision and upheld Michigan's ban on same-sex marriage (as well as the bans in Tennessee, Kentucky, and Ohio). It concluded that the Supreme Court has already held that same-sex couples have no constitutional right to marry, by virtue of the Supreme Court's one-line order in Baker v. Nelson, 409 U.S. 810, 93 S.Ct. 37, 34 L.Ed.2d 65 (1972), which dismissed the appeal of a lawsuit challenging a Minnesota same-sex marriage ban because it did not raise “a substantial federal question.” DeBoer, 772 F.3d at 400 (quotation marks omitted). Rejecting the theory that United States v. Windsor, ––– U.S. ––––, 133 S.Ct. 2675, 186 L.Ed.2d 808 (2013) overturned Baker when the Supreme Court struck down the Defense of Marriage Act of 1996 for the act's refusal to recognize same-sex marriages allowed in some states, the Sixth Circuit examined numerous grounds urged in support of same-sex marriage and found all lacking. Notably, for purposes of our case, the Sixth Circuit did not address the question presented here: whether same-sex couples who were married pursuant to Michigan marriage licenses issued under Michigan law—as it stood at the time their marriages were solemnized—may, consistent with the Constitution, be stripped by the state of their marital status. The plaintiffs in DeBoer have filed a petition for a writ of certiorari with the Supreme Court, DeBoer v. Snyder, 772 F.3d 388 (6th Cir.2014), ...