Lambda Legal: Collins v. Brewer

Collins v. Brewer

Case representing Arizona lesbian and gay state employees facing elimination of their domestic partner benefits.

Status

Opened: 11/17/09

State

Arizona

Issues

Employment and Rights in the Workplace,
Health Care Fairness,
Same-Sex Relationships

Plaintiffs

Tracy Collins; Keith B. Humphrey; Joseph R. Diaz; Judith McDaniel; Beverly Seckinger; Stephen Russell; Deanna Pfleger; Corey Seemiller; Carrie Sperling; and Leslie Kemp.

Attorneys

Lambda Legal
Jennifer C. Pizer; Tara L. Borelli

Perkins Coie
Daniel C. Barr, Rhonda L. Barnes, James E. Barton, II

Summary

In the summer of 2009, while our nation was in the grips of an intense debate about improving health care access, the state of Arizona enacted a mean-spirited law to strip lesbian and gay state employees of domestic partner benefits. Lambda Legal has sued to block enforcement of this law, and to restore fair treatment for the state’s valuable lesbian and gay workers. Lambda Legal represents 10 government employees who have, among other things, protected the public as law enforcement officers and educated our best and brightest in Arizona’s universities. Their families’ circumstances represent some of the terrible harms that lesbian and gay state employees will face without equal health benefits for their families. Our suit claims that if state officials strip domestic partner health benefits from lesbian and gay government workers, they violate the federal constitution’s promises that 1) the government will treat similarly situated people equally, and 2) it will not punish people for exercising their fundamental right to a private, intimate relationship with a same-sex partner, which Lambda Legal established nationally in Lawrence v. Texas.