Justia Family Law Opinion Summaries

Employee was terminated from his job at a Walgreens store in Puerto Rico after a two-week absence from his job due to a medical condition. Following his termination, Employee and his wife (Wife) sued Walgreens, alleging that Employee was fired in retaliation for conduct protected by the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA), that his termination was wrongful under Puerto Rico law, and that the loss of Employee's job caused Wife to suffer compensable emotional distress. The district court granted summary judgment for Walgreens on Wife's claim and the plaintiffs voluntarily dismissed the other Puerto Rico law claim. The FMLA claim went to trial, and a jury found in Employee's favor, awarding compensatory damages. The First Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment of the district court in all respects, save its rejection of Wife's Puerto Rico law claim. Because the claim presented an important and unresolved issue of Puerto Rico law that the Court declined to address in the first instance, the Court certified the question to the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico and reserved judgment on this particular issue pending its response. View "Pagan-Colon v. Walgreens of San Patricio, Inc." on Justia Law

Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act, 1 U.S.C. 7, denies federal economic and other benefits to same-sex couples lawfully married in Massachusetts and to surviving spouses from those couples, by defining "marriage" as "only a legal union between one man and one woman." "Spouse" refers "only to a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife." DOMA absolves states from recognizing same-sex marriages solemnized in other states; prevents same-sex married couples from filing joint federal tax returns, affecting tax burdens; prevents a surviving same-sex spouse from collecting Social Security survivor benefits; leaves federal employees unable to share health insurance and other benefits with same-sex spouses. DOMA may result in loss of federal funding of programs such as Medicaid and veterans cemeteries if states recognize same-sex marriages in determining income or allowing burials. The district court declared Section 3 unconstitutional. The First Circuit affirmed, but stayed injunctive relief, anticipating certiorari review. The court applied "a closer than usual review" based on discrepant impact among married couples and on the importance of state interests in regulating marriage and tested the rationales for DOMA, considering Supreme Court precedent limiting which rationales can be counted and the force of certain rationales. View "Commonwealth v. U.S. Dep't of Health & Human Servs." on Justia Law

Defendant, a patent attorney and licensed engineer, the divorced father of children born in 1985, 1986, and 1991, was ordered in 2002 to pay weekly child support of $1,406 per week plus $300 per week toward past medical expenses. He has paid no child support since issuance of the final order. He attempted to appeal the order to the U.S. Supreme Court and filed unsuccessful suits and appeals in four states (New Hampshire, Vermont, Virginia, and Maryland) and in two federal courts, arguing that the order was invalid because the New Hampshire court lacked subject matter jurisdiction. Convicted of willful failure to pay child support, 18 U.S.C. 228(a)(3), defendant was sentenced to 24 months in prison. The First Circuit affirmed, finding the evidence sufficient to support findings that he was able to pay and willfully refused to pay. The district court properly charged the jury on willful blindness.

The defendant was convicted under the Child Support Recovery Act, 18 U.S.C. 228. The First Circuit upheld a jury instruction that he could be found guilty if the jury concluded beyond a reasonable doubt that he was able to pay at least a portion of his support obligation but failed to do so, rejecting an argument that the Act only imposes criminal liability where the defendant is able to pay the entire amount due but fails to do so. The court also upheld a jury instruction explaining the requirement that the outstanding child support debt be greater than $10,000 or remain unpaid for longer than two years.