News
2006-08-18
Lesbian denied
standing to file wrongful death suit for loss
of partner
A judge on New
York State's Long Island has dismissed the wrongful death
suit filed by the lesb
A judge on New
York State's Long Island has dismissed the wrongful death
suit filed by the lesbian partner of a woman killed in a car
accident, ruling that she has no case because the two
women were not legally married. Linda Saegert of
Valley Stream, N.Y., filed the suit after her partner
of 18 years, Victoria Sarafino, died after being hit by a
car in 2003, but Saegert will not be allowed to pursue
the case in Sarafino's name, reports New York City's Newsday.
New York supreme court judge Daniel Palmieri
noted that existing state law makes "a legal
distinction between same-sex partners and heterosexual
spouses," adding that the state judiciary's appellate
division had already ruled that "a same-sex partner, as
executor, has no standing to sue in wrongful death on
the partner's own behalf," according to Newsday.
Although the judge was only following previous
court precedent as he was required to do, the ruling
dismayed gay rights advocates. "Here in the state of
New York, you have different classes of people,"
Alphonso David, a staff attorney with Lambda Legal, told
Newsday. "Same-sex partners are assigned a
second-class-citizen badge."
Said Saegert, 53, who owned a house and business
with Sarafino, whom she married in a Unitarian
ceremony: "We did everything that's the criteria for a
nuclear family. We were a couple as well as any husband
and wife."
Because Saegert was named the beneficiary and
executor of Sarafino's will, the court decision does
allow her to continue pursuing damages related to the
pain and suffering her late partner experienced in her
dying moments. Were she not so named, Saegert would not have
legal standing in that case either. (The
Advocate)
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