Tag Archives: decision

Overturning DOMA Will Increase LGBT Rights in the Workplace

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The impact of the U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning the Defense of Marriage Act will be felt in the workplace.

First of all, overturning DOMA will expand anti-discrimination protections and partner benefits to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender employees who are employed by the federal government.

Overturning DOMA will also probably benefit LGBT employees not working for the federal government. One argument is that banning LGBT discrimination in federal employment will ease acceptance of extending anti-discrimination protections to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender workers in the workforce as a whole. Legislation has been introduced that would explicitly extend protections of federal and state fair-employment statutes to LGBT workers.

From a political point of view, explicitly extending fair-employment statutes to cover LGBT workers probably won’t be feasible until at least 2015, depending on the outcome of the 2014 elections. Politicians in “red states” in both parties may be wary of conservative backlash if they support extending fair-employment practices. That same reticence will probably be displayed by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid who needs to Democrats to win in several conservative states in order to hold on to the majority.

But the recent decision overturning DOMA may further open the door to judicially expanding employment statutes to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender employees. Justice Anthony Kennedy and the liberal bloc struck down DOMA on Fifth/14th Amendment equal-protection grounds. If states can’t discriminate against gays in marriage on equal-protection grounds, it doesn’t make logical sense that the Fifth/14th Amendment allows employment discrimination against LGBT workers.

It is arguable that LGBT people already have the protections of our fair-employment laws under the theory of sex-plus discrimination that prohibits discrimination based on sexual stereotypes. In Smith v. City of Salem, Ohio, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals extended protections under the sex-plus theory to a male firefighter who started identifying as a woman. In Lewis v. Heartland Inns of America, the conservative Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a finding of possible finding of sex discrimination for a woman who was described by her boss as having “an Ellen DeGeneres kind of look.” Though the Eighth Circuit didn’t make any reference to sexual orientation in the decision, it is obvious that “Ellen DeGeneres” is a code word for “lesbian.” It makes sense to me that opposite-sex attraction is a stereotype for each gender and that discrimination against LGBT people should be covered under the theory of sex-plus discrimination. I think courts will be increasingly be forced to rule that way in the wake of the decision on DOMA stating that discrimination against gays and lesbians runs afoul of the Fifth/14th Amendments. Another possible factor working in favor of expanding fair-employment protections to LGBT workers are recent Supreme Court decisions interpreting federal fair-employment law favorably for employers. It’s easy to conceive of a moderately conservative judge in the mode of Justice Kennedy judicially extending fair-employment law to gays and lesbians with the understanding that it will likely be more difficult employees to win fair-employment suits.

Until Congress and/or our state legislatures act, LGBT employees are not guaranteed equal rights at work. But thanks to the decision overturning DOMA, I think courts will be more open to extending workplace rights to the LGBT community, regardless of what is done in the legislative branch.

The offices of Rehm, Bennett, Moore & Rehm, which also sponsors the Trucker Lawyers website, are located in Lincoln and Omaha, Nebraska. Five attorneys represent plaintiffs in workers’ compensation, personal injury, employment and Social Security disability claims. The firm’s lawyers have combined experience of more than 95 years of practice representing injured workers and truck drivers in Nebraska, Iowa and other states with Nebraska and Iowa jurisdiction. The lawyers regularly represent hurt truck drivers and often sue Crete Carrier Corporation, K&B Trucking, Werner Enterprises, UPS, and FedEx. Lawyers in the firm hold licenses in Nebraska and Iowa and are active in groups such as the College of Workers’ Compensation Lawyers, Workers' Injury Law & Advocacy Group (WILG), American Association for Justice (AAJ), the Nebraska Association of Trial Attorneys (NATA), and the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA). We have the knowledge, experience and toughness to win rightful compensation for people who have been injured or mistreated.

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Why Overturning DOMA Is a Win for Employee Rights

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Regardless of your opinion on the issue of gay rights, Wednesday’s U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning the Defense of Marriage Act is a win for workplace fairness.

The constitutional authorization for most federal fair-employment laws is based on the guarantees of equal protection of the law based on the Fifth and 14th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution and the right of Congress to regulate interstate commerce clause. In his opinion overturning DOMA, Justice Anthony Kennedy found that DOMA violated the Fifth and 14th Amendment rights of gays and lesbians. He reaffirmed the role of the Fifth and 14th Amendments in preventing discrimination.

Kennedy’s opinion is important because in last summer’s blockbuster Supreme Court decision upholding the Affordable Care Act, Chief Justice John Roberts undercut the interstate commerce clause as a justification for passing federal legislation. Conceivably, corporate opponents of workplace fairness laws could point to Roberts’ decision in the Affordable Care Act as a way to argue that federal workplace fairness laws are unconstitutional. However Wednesday’s decision in the DOMA case means that workplace fairness laws still have clear and strong constitutional support.

The DOMA decision is a bright spot in a Supreme Court session that has otherwise been pretty bleak for employees. My opinion is that as a result of recent Supreme Court decisions, more and more fair-employment cases will be brought in state court. The decision in DOMA is still relevant to state law discrimination and retaliation claims. Most states have equal protection clauses in their state constitutions. The reasoning supporting the DOMA decision supports state fair-employment statutes. I believe this is true even for fair employment claims based on retaliation. As Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg pointed out in her dissent in Nassar, retaliation is a form of discrimination. In other words, if you have been fired in retaliation for filing a workers’ compensation claim, your constitutional rights have been violated. If the Supreme Court had decided DOMA differently, employees would have a weaker argument that a retaliatory discharge violated their equal protection rights.

The offices of Rehm, Bennett, Moore & Rehm, which also sponsors the Trucker Lawyers website, are located in Lincoln and Omaha, Nebraska. Five attorneys represent plaintiffs in workers’ compensation, personal injury, employment and Social Security disability claims. The firm’s lawyers have combined experience of more than 95 years of practice representing injured workers and truck drivers in Nebraska, Iowa and other states with Nebraska and Iowa jurisdiction. The lawyers regularly represent hurt truck drivers and often sue Crete Carrier Corporation, K&B Trucking, Werner Enterprises, UPS, and FedEx. Lawyers in the firm hold licenses in Nebraska and Iowa and are active in groups such as the College of Workers’ Compensation Lawyers, Workers' Injury Law & Advocacy Group (WILG), American Association for Justice (AAJ), the Nebraska Association of Trial Attorneys (NATA), and the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA). We have the knowledge, experience and toughness to win rightful compensation for people who have been injured or mistreated.

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