Goodridge v. Dept. of Public Health | |
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Court | Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court |
Full case name | Hillary Goodridge, Julie Goodridge, David Wilson, Robert Compton, Michael Horgan, Edward Balmelli, Maureen Brodoff, Ellen Wade, Gary Chalmers, Richard Linnell, Heidi Norton, Gina Smith, Gloria Bailey, and Linda Davies v. Massachusetts Department of Public Health and Commissioner of Public Health |
Argued | March 4, 2003 |
Decided | November 18, 2003 |
Citations | 440 Mass. 309, 798 N.E.2d 941 (Mass. 2003) |
Case history | |
Prior actions | Summary judgment granted to defendants, 14 Mass. L. Rep. 591 (Mass. Super. Ct. 2002) |
Subsequent action | none |
Holding | |
The denial of marriage licenses to same-sex couples violated provisions of the state constitution guaranteeing individual liberty and equality, and was not rationally related to a legitimate state interest. Superior Court of Massachusetts at Suffolk vacated and remanded. | |
Court membership | |
Judges sitting | Margaret H. Marshall, John M. Greaney, Roderick L. Ireland, Francis X. Spina, Judith A. Cowin, Martha B. Sosman, Robert J. Cordy |
Case opinions | |
Majority | Marshall, joined by Greaney, Ireland, Cowin |
Concurrence | Greaney |
Dissent | Spina, joined by Sosman, Cordy |
Dissent | Sosman, joined by Spina, Cordy |
Dissent | Cordy, joined by Spina, Sosman |
Laws applied | |
Mass. Const. arts. 1, 6, 7, and 10, and Part II, c. 1, § 1, art. 4; Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 207 |
Goodridge v. Dept. of Public Health, 798 N.E.2d 941 (Mass. 2003), is a landmark Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court case in which the Court held that the Massachusetts Constitution requires the state to legally recognize same-sex marriage. The November 18, 2003, decision was the first by a U.S. state's highest court to find that same-sex couples had the right to marry.[1] Despite numerous attempts to delay the ruling, and to reverse it, the first marriage licenses were issued to same-sex couples on May 17, 2004, and the ruling has been in full effect since that date.