A federal bankruptcy court strikes a powerful blow at DOMA

The opening of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Central District of California's decision striking down Section 3 of DOMA (click to enlarge)

"In the end, the court finds that DOMA violates the equal protection rights of the Debtors as recognized under the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment."

-- from the court's "Conclusion"

by Ken

It's a decision whose practical impact may seem modest: It simply denies a U.S. Trustee's attempt to block two individuals from making a joint bankruptcy filing. But the ground for the trustee's opposition was none other than the infamous federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), already under multiple challenge in the federal courts, and in order to arrive at its ruling -- personally signed, in extraordinary, possibly unprecedented fashion, by 20 members of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Central District of California -- the court had to declare:

The Debtors had demonstrated that DOMA violates their equal protection rights afforded under the Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution, either under heightened scrutiny or under rational basis review. Debtors have also demonstrated that there is no valid governmental basis for DOMA. In the end, the court finds that DOMA violates the equal protection rights of the Debtors as recognized under the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment.

And again, the decision was rendered in a form that has left our legal eagle consultant, at least, in addition to finding the legal reasoning extremely compelling, gasping for precedent, with those signatures by 20 justices of the court, out of a total of either 24 or 25 -- as Chris Geidner notes in his Metro Weekly blogpost: "The confusion comes because one of the signatories, Kathleen Thompson, is not listed as a judge on the court's website."

The "Conclusion" of the ruling, with its invocation of Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas's majority opinion in Griswold v. Connecticut

To return to Chris Geidner's post, here is how Chris frames the case:

The underlying basis for the challenge was described by the court:

This case is about equality, regardless of gender or sexual orientation, for two people who filed for protection under Title 11 of the United States Code (Bankruptcy Code). Like many struggling families during these difficult economic times, Gene Balas and Carlos Morales (Debtors), filed a joint chapter 13 petition on February 24, 2011. Although the Debtors were legally married to each other in California on August 20, 2008, and remain married today, the United States Trustee (sometimes referred to simply as “trustee”) moved to dismiss this case pursuant to Bankruptcy Code § 1307(c) (Motion to Dismiss), asserting that the Debtors are ineligible to file a joint petition based on Bankruptcy Code § 302(a) because the Debtors are two males.

It is important to note that the case was filed on Feb. 24, one day after President Barack Obama's position that Section 3 of DOMA was unconstitutional was announced in a letter sent from Attorney General Eric Holder to House Speaker John Boehner.

As the court summed about the trustee's position:

The trustee seeks dismissal solely because the Debtors are a same-sex married couple, in violation of DOMA’s definition of “spouse” as the statute applies to Bankruptcy Code § 302(a).

The case had been brought to the attention of the House Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group, which is defending the Defense of Marriage Act in several other cases, but the BLAG had not intervened in this case, according to the opinion:

The House Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group, acting through the United States Trustee, at the last minute orally requested a short continuance of the May 17 hearing in order to determine whether to intervene in this case to address the issues. Debtors consented and the court granted the request; yet, there have been no further pleadings and no challenge from the government to any issue raised by the Debtors. The government’s non-response to the Debtors’ challenges is noteworthy.

THE JUDGES' SIGNATURES




The 20 signatures personally entered by judges of the Central District of California federal bankruptcy court -- our legal eagle was left gasping for judicial precedent.

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