Pedersen v. Office of Personnel Management

Pedersen v. Office of Personnel Management
Pedersen v. Office of Personnel Management
Court	United States District Court for the District of Connecticut
Full case name	Joanne Pedersen, et al., v. Office of Personnel Management, et al.
Decided	July 31, 2012
Citation	10 CV 1750 (D. Conn. July 31, 2012)
Case history
Subsequent actions	On appeal to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals (No. 12-3273); Petition for certiorari before judgment filed in the United States Supreme Court (No. 12-231), 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.); Golinski v. Office of Personnel Management (9th Cir.); United States v. Windsor (U.S. Sup. Ct.); Cardona v. Shinseki (Vet. App.);
Holding
	Section 3 of DOMA violates the Equal Protection Clause.
Court membership
Judge sitting	Vanessa L. Bryant
Keywords
	Defense of Marriage Act, Equal protection, Same-sex marriage, States' rights

Pedersen v. Office of Personnel Management is a federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act, Section 3, which defined the federal definition of marriage to be a union of a man and a woman, entirely excluding legally married same-sex couples. The District Court that originally heard the case ruled Section 3 unconstitutional. On June 26, 2013, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled Section 3 of DOMA unconstitutional, and denied appeal of Pedersen the next day.