Same Sex Marriage benefits and FedEx

Earlier this month, a federal judge in California ruled that a same sex widow of a deceased FedEx employee should get survivor benefits – even though the couple wasn’t married according to state law and one spouse died before the Supreme Court overturned California’s use of the Defense of Marriage Act in 2013.

Schuett v. Fedex, still pending, highlights the importance that timing – and a clear trail of documents and witnesses – will have in determining the disposition of marital assets for same sex couples. It also illustrates how courts are beginning to grapple with same sex marriage issues retroactively.

Stacey Schuett and Lesly Taboada-Hall were together for 30 years, raised two children, and married in a civil ceremony in their home on June 19, 2013, a time when California had suspended same sex marriages because the state’s application of the (now-defunct) Defense of Marriage Act was being challenged in the U.S. Court of Appeals. Taboada-Hall, a longtime FedEx employee, died 6 days later of cancer, and Schuett sued FedEx when they would not give her survivor benefits.

FedEx argued that the two were not legally married on the date of Taboada-Hall’s death and that the pension plan recognized only spouses of the opposite sex. But U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton on January 4, 2016 held that the only reason the two were not married was because California had applied DOMA, which was later struck down as unconstitutional. “They wanted to marry, intended to marry, and did everything possible to legally marry while Ms. Taboada-Hall was still alive,” Hamilton wrote, arguing that if California had not been using an unconstitutional law “there would be no question” they were married.

What’s key here is the consideration of the couple’s intent and a retroactive application of a Supreme Court ruling. In the aftermath of the June, 2015, Supreme Court ruling legalizing same sex marriage in all states, one wonders how prevalent this judge’s view might become. For instance, might another plaintiff argue that they were illegally prevented from marrying a same sex partner prior to June 2015 and should thus be entitled to all the benefits of marriage retroactively?

Questions like these will take time to work their way through the courts. This one case is neither final nor indicative of a general trend. But it certainly illustrates that same sex couples and the companies that employ them will continue to argue these issues for a long time to come.