Law Commons^™

Massachusetts' Domestic Partnership Challenge: Hope For A Better Future, Jennifer Levi

Faculty Scholarship

Acknowledging that its decision means that "some household members" may be without a "critical social necessity," the Massachusetts Supreme Iudicial Court (SJC) ruled in Connors v. City of Boston that Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino's executive order granting health insurance benefits to the domestic partners of city employees could not stand in the face of a Massachusetts state insurance law. In Connors, the SJC simultaneously recognized that although the demographics of Massachusetts households have changed within the more than forty years since the state insurance law, G.L. c. 32B (Chapter 32B), was adopted, that law nevertheless constrains municipalities from extending …