Lambda Legal Appeals Prudential Financial's Denial of Medical Insurance Coverage for Lesbian Retiree's Spouse Who She Legally Married in Canada

(Santa Fe, New Mexico, March 30, 2004) Saying that Prudential Financial’s denial of benefits to the spouse of a lesbian retiree is baseless and uncharacteristic for the company, Lambda Legal this week formally asked the company to reconsider the decision.

After her marriage in Canada, Laurel Awishus, a retired Prudential Financial employee who worked for the company for 20 years, sought to enroll her spouse of nearly 22 years, Kathy Adelsheim, in the medical benefits program offered to the company’s retirees and spouses.

Prudential Financial, headquartered in Newark, New Jersey, offers benefits to the domestic partners of gay and lesbian employees, but says that it only offers those benefits in retirement if the employee retired after January 1, 2000. Straight spouses are entitled to benefits regardless of retirement date.

“When Ms. Awishus and her wife married in Canada, they became spouses and are entitled to benefits other spouses enjoy,” said Brian Chase, Staff Attorney in Lambda Legal’s South Central Regional Office based in Dallas. “Prudential Financial’s action in this matter is a departure from their treatment of gay and lesbian employees in the past,” Chase said.

Prudential Financial is partly using the IRS’s definition of whether the women are married to justify its decision, and in its appeal letter to the company Lambda Legal said that rationale is flawed and the IRS does not decide who is married. Lambda Legal’s appeal notes Prudential Financial’s long history of support for lesbian and gay employees, and says the denial of spousal benefits is a “troubling” departure for the company. “Setting up a different standard for gay couples than for heterosexual couples is the very definition of discrimination,” Lambda Legal’s appeal letter says.

Same-sex couples across the country have been using legal marriages conducted in Canada to address the discrimination they experience in their daily lives. Canadian provinces began issuing marriages to same-sex couples last summer after court rulings requiring equal access to marriage.

“We are a married couple and should be treated as such. I worked for Prudential for 20 years and have a lot of respect for them, but I can’t respect they way they are treating us right now,” Awishus said. “One of the reasons I’m in this precarious spot is that 19 years ago I moved with Laurel to New Jersey when the company transferred her. I left a promising career behind-that included benefits. I wasn’t treated like a spouse then because we weren’t married. Now we’re married, and that should be respected,” Adelsheim said.

Lambda Legal recently released “We Got Married in Canada, What’s Next?” a guide for couples who legally married in Canada and seek to have their marriages respected in the United States.

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Contact: Lisa Hardaway 212-809-8585 ext.266; pager: 888-987-1971