Golinski v. Office of Personnel Management

Golinski v. Office of Personnel Management
Court	United States District Court for the Northern District of California
Full case name	Karen Golinski, Plaintiff, v. Office of Personnel Management, et al., Defendants.
Decided	February 22, 2012
Citation	824 F. Supp. 2d 968
Case history
Subsequent actions	On appeal in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals (Nos. 12-15388 and 12-15409); Petition for certiorari before judgment in the U.S. Supreme Court (No. 12-16), denied June 27, 2013
Related actions	Gill v. Office of Personnel Management and Massachusetts v. United States Department of Health and Human Services (1st Cir.)[n 1] United States v. Windsor (U.S. Sup. Ct.)[n 2] Pedersen v. Office of Personnel Management (2nd Cir.)[n 3] Cardona v. Shinseki (Vet. App.)[n 4]
Holding
Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act does not substantially relate to an important government interest or rationally relate to a legitimate government end.
Court membership
Judge sitting	Jeffrey White
Keywords
Fifth Amendment, Equal protection, Defense of Marriage Act, Same-sex marriage

Golinski v. Office of Personnel Management, 824 F. Supp. 2d 968 (N.D. Cal. 2012), was a lawsuit filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. The plaintiff, Karen Golinski, challenged the constitutionality of section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which defined, for the purposes of federal law, marriage as being between one man and one woman, and spouse as a husband or wife of the opposite sex.

On February 22, 2012, the District Court held section 3 unconstitutional. The case was appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The Department of Justice (DOJ), on July 3, 2012, asked the Supreme Court to take the case before the Ninth Circuit decided it, so it could be heard with two other DOMA-related cases, Gill v. Office of Personnel Management and Massachusetts v. United States Department of Health and Human Services.

The Ninth Circuit delayed oral argument pending action by the Supreme Court. Following that Court's decision in United States v. Windsor, the appeal was dismissed on July 23, 2013.
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