Edie Windsor, the widowed lesbian who won a challenge of the Defense of Marriage Act and is urging the U.S. Supreme Court to hear an appeal, is relying on Sard Verbinnen & Co. for PR support.
Spyer and Windsor
Photo: NYCLU
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Windsor’s attorneys, including Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, the American Civil Liberties Union, the NYCLU and a Stanford Law School litigation clinic, on July 16 filed a petition for certiorari to the high court to challenge DOMA, an effort to speed the case because of Windsor’s age (83) and heart condition.
Sard Verbinnen & Co. told O’Dwyer’s that the firm is representing Windsor on a pro bono basis. It has worked the case for the past two years.
A federal district court which heard Windsor’s case ruled DOMA unconstitutional in June, a decision which has been appealed by lawyers for the Republican-controlled House of Representatives.
Windsor lived with her partner, Thea Spyer, as an engaged couple for 40 years before they were legally married in Canada in 2007. After Spyer died in 2009, she left her estate to Windsor but because of DOMA, more than $363K in federal estate taxes were due.
“Because the district court’s ruling in her favor is entitled to an automatic stay of enforcement, Edie cannot yet receive a refund of the unconstitutional estate tax that she was forced to pay simply for being gay,” said her lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, a partner at Paul Weiss. “The constitutional injury inflicted on Edie should be remedied within her lifetime.”
The NY ACLU notes that although gay marriage has been legalized in New York, the federal DOMA law does not recognize the unions.
The Obama administration last year said it would no longer defend DOMA as constitutional.