As a follow up to our earlier alert, on June 26 in United States v. Windsor, the Supreme Court struck down Section 3 of the federal Defense of Marriage Act (“DOMA”), which had defined “marriage” as a “legal union between a man and a woman,” and “spouse” as a person married to someone of the opposite sex. This decision has profound implications for employers because DOMA had affected over 1,000 federal rights and benefits. Unfortunately, not all of these implications are clear-cut. Because states differ in their degree of recognition of same-sex marriages, and because of jurisdictional issues, full implementation of the Windsor ruling will require federal agencies to rewrite their rules, and difficult issues involving state lines will need to be addressed.

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