Another Victory in a DOMA case
Today the Federal District Court for the Southern District of New York handed down its decision in the Windsor case. In alignment with every other court ruling on this issue in the past 12 months, the court ruled DOMA unconstitutional.
I blogged about the Windsor case here. Edie Windsor is suing the United States in her role as executor of the estate of her deceased spouse Thea Speyer who died in 2009. The estate was liable for an estate tax because Thea’s gift to Edie did not qualify for the marital deduction. BLAG (the legislative group that is defending DOMA in the courts) argued first that DOMA is constitutional and thus bars the deduction, and second, the estate was not entitled to the marital deduction in any event because in 2009 the State of New York did not recognize same-sex marriages. They lost on both counts.
The proferred justifications for DOMA did not survive rational basis review and while the state of New York did not permit or recognize same-sex marriages entered into in New York, it did, as a matter of judicial decision and executive order, recognize valid same-sex marriages from other jurisdictions. Thus, Edie and Thea’s Canadian marriage was valid in New York in 2009 and the estate was entitled to claim a marital deduction.
