Sevcik v. Sandoval
Lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada arguing that Nevada’s ban on marriage equality violates the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution.
Lambda Legal has filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada on behalf of eight same-sex Nevada couples arguing that Nevada’s constitutional ban on marriage equality violates the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution. Plainitffs argue that Nevada’s exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage, while relegating them to the second-class status of domestic partnership, violates their right to equal treatment under the U.S. Constitution. This discriminatory system stigmatizes same-sex couples and their families, and treats them as inferior.
- April 10, 2012 Lambda Legal, joined by pro bono co-counsel from O’Melveny & Myers LLP and Snell & Wilmer LLP, files the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada
- August 10, 2012 Court defers motion to dismiss and agrees to hear the case. Court also grants a motion by the Coalition for the Protection of Marriage to intervene as a defendant in the lawsuit.
- November 26, 2012 Court rules against the plaintiffs, upholding Nevada’s marriage equality ban. Lambda Legal will appeal.
- February 10, 2014 Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval seeks leave to withdraw the brief submitted on his behalf by Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit defending the state’s discriminatory marriage ban.
- February 12, 2014 Ninth Circuit grants Lambda Legal’s request for an expedited hearing.
- September 2014 The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit heard oral arguments in Sevcik v. Sandoval and two other marriage equality cases.
- October 8, 2014 In a unanimous 3-0 decision, the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals struck down discriminatory marriage bans for same-sex couples in Nevada and Idaho only one day after the United States Supreme Court let pro-equality rulings stand in three other circuit courts.