In Anti-Gay Bias Lawsuit Against UPS, Lambda Legal Says Gay Couple of 27 Years Is Forced To Live Apart Because UPS Policy Favors Straight, Married Couples

(San Francisco, August 19, 2003) - United Parcel Service illegally discriminates against its lesbian and gay employees by not including them in a corporate policy that lets employees relocate to another city to avoid having their families broken apart when their loved ones have job transfers, Lambda Legal Defense & Education Fund said in a lawsuit filed in California state court today.

Lambda Legal represents Daniel Kline, who has worked for UPS for more than two decades, and his partner of 27 years, Frank Sories. In January, Sories was transferred from San Francisco to Chicago by his employer, United Airlines, when its office in San Francisco closed. Kline applied for a transfer to UPS’s Chicago branch under the company’s “Management Initiated Transfer Request” policy. Kline’s transfer was approved at district and regional levels, but was ultimately rejected by the corporation because the men are gay and therefore not legally married to each other.

“UPS’s policy is intended to help loyal employees keep their families intact -- but it wrongly excludes certain types of families, forcing people like our clients to choose between their lifelong partners and their lifelong careers,” said Jon W. Davidson, Senior Counsel for Lambda Legal in its Western Regional Office in Los Angeles. “This kind of blatant and unabashed discrimination is clearly illegal. UPS doesn’t have to let its employees relocate to stay with their families, but if the company offers this benefit to straight employees, it also has to offer it to gay employees.”

By excluding Kline and Sories from its transfer policy, UPS is in violation of state laws that prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation, marital status and sex, Lambda Legal says in today’s lawsuit. The lawsuit also includes breach-of-contract charges against UPS, since the company has adopted policies promising its employees protection against sexual orientation discrimination and assuring them that they will be treated with fairness, dignity and respect.

“More and more corporations and private employers have good nondiscrimination policies that tell current and potential employees they’ll be treated fairly at these companies,” Davidson said. “This lawsuit tells employers that the law requires them to treat their lesbian and gay employees fairly -- and that good policies need to have real meaning and be backed up with equal treatment.”

Kline, who has been a well-regarded UPS employee for more than 20 years, is a dispatch analyst supervisor. He is nine years away from being eligible for retirement benefits. He and Sories met when they were both in the Army and later began a committed relationship. The couple is registered as domestic partners in California, they are designated as the beneficiaries of each other’s wills, and they hold health care and general powers of attorney for one another. Sories is designated as the beneficiary of Kline’s UPS-provided retirement savings, stock plans and life insurance. The couple owns a home in San Francisco, but they’ve been forced to live apart since Sories’s transfer to Chicago earlier this year.

“I just want to live with the man whom I’ve spent that last 27 years of my life with,” Kline said. “Even though it’s been eight months since we lived under the same roof, I’m still surprised and disappointed every day that I come home from work and he isn’t there. I know that I’m not truly home unless he’s with me.”

Over the last several months, UPS has declined the couple’s offer to drop any legal action - including any damages claims from being forced to live apart for the last eight months -- if the company allowed Kline to relocate to Chicago and include other employees with domestic partners in the transfer policy. Today’s lawsuit, filed in state court in Alameda County, seeks a judgment against UPS requiring policy changes as well as unspecified financial damages for Kline and Sories.

Today’s lawsuit also includes charges against Kline’s supervisor at UPS, Dominic Culotta, for illegally retaliating against Kline for pursuing the transfer. The complaint says that in February, Culotta said Kline’s job could be in jeopardy if he did not accept the fact that a transfer would never happen. Since then, Kline has faced harassment at work and has been given less desirable job assignments.

Last month, discussing a proposed settlement of a class-action discrimination case on behalf of deaf employees, UPS spokeswoman Peggy Gardner said, “UPS has gone far beyond what the law requires because of the company’s desire to create a positive work environment.” Davidson said today’s case is about the company’s basic legal obligations. “We’re not asking UPS to do anything ‘above and beyond’ what the law requires,” he said. “We want UPS to treat its employees equally, which is exactly what state laws mandate.”

Davidson is Lambda Legal’s lead attorney on the case, along with Jennifer Middleton, Senior Staff Attorney in Lambda Legal’s New York office, and co-counsel Alexander van Broek of Oakland, Calif.

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About United Parcel Service
UPS is the world’s largest package delivery company, with $31.3 billion in revenue in 2002. It is the nation’s fourth-largest employer, with 320,000 employees in the U.S. The company has a nondiscrimination policy that includes sexual orientation, but it only offers health insurance to some employees’ same-sex domestic partners.

About Lambda Legal Defense & Education Fund
Lambda Legal is the oldest and largest national organization fighting for the legal rights of lesbians, gay, men, bisexuals, transgendered people and those with HIV or AIDS. In June 2003, Lambda Legal won a landmark U.S. Supreme Court case striking down Texas’s “Homosexual Conduct” law. Lambda Legal drafted strong domestic partnership legislation that is pending in California, and is litigating a case in New Jersey state court seeking full marriage rights for same-sex couples.

Contact: In San Francisco: Fred Shank, 917/691-5412 (mobile)
In New York: Eric Ferrero, 212/809-8585, x227; 888/987-1984 (pgr)