In May 2017, NCLR and Teresa Renaker of Renaker Hasselman LLP appealed a decision by the federal Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to collect an overpayment of benefits that resulted from decades of discrimination. After 38 years of service, when Ms. Krall notified OPM of her marriage to her loving partner of 21 years, OPM informed the couple that if they elected a survivor pension benefit, the couple would have to first repay hundreds of thousands of dollars of retirement benefits Ms. Krall received as a single life annuity.

In November 2016, NCLR and attorney Teresa Renaker appealed a decision by the New York Philharmonic-Symphony’s pension plan denying a spousal benefit to Thomas O’Connor, a retired employee, and his husband, Victor Bumbalo. The plan originally denied the benefit on the basis that federal law in effect when Mr. O’Connor retired in 2009 did not recognize the marriage.

On February 8, 2017, NCLR, GLAD, and Lambda Legal filed an amicus brief arguing that Louisiana’s law requiring any foreign-born person to present a certified birth certificate in order to marry was an unconstitutional infringement on the fundamental right to marry, and requesting that the court grant a preliminary injunction against enforcement of that law.

NCLR represents Kathy Reynolds and Dawn McKinley, a same-sex couple who are members of the Cherokee Nation. In May 2004, Reynolds and McKinley obtained a marriage certificate from the Cherokee Nation and married shortly thereafter. The next month, another member of the Cherokee Nation filed a petition seeking to invalidate Reynolds and McKinley’s marriage.

Florida law requires the Office of Vital Statistics to list a birth mother’s husband on the child’s birth certificate. After Florida gained marriage equality on January 6, 2015, the state was obligated to start providing same-sex spouses with all the same rights given to different-sex spouses. Despite repeated requests, the Florida Office of Vital Statistics refused to recognize same-sex spouses on birth certificates.

Suzan McLaughlin and Kimberly McLaughlin were a married lesbian couple who had a child using artificial insemination with an anonymous donor in 2011. The parties separated in 2013 and Kimberly stopped allowing Suzan to see their child. In 2017, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled that Suzan is a legal parent and in 2018 the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the Arizona Supreme Court decision to stand.