Judge rules to halt case for benefits

Christine Biancheria is not happy, but she’s not surprised.

She’s also not done fighting…. Christine Biancheria is not happy, but she’s not surprised.

She’s also not done fighting.

On Monday, a judge handed down a permanent injunction, barring Pitt employees from proceeding with claims that they were wrongly denied health insurance for their gay and lesbian partners. Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Robert C. Gallo’s decision was the latest event concerning an 8-year-old case brought forth by seven current and former Pitt employees in a dispute over domestic partner benefits.

Biancheria, who is handling the case for the plaintiffs on behalf of the American Civil Liberties Union, said that the decision was “disappointing,” but not a major surprise, largely because Gallo had issued the preliminary injunction against the plaintiffs in the case years ago.

“There are so many errors, and such big errors, that … there is an excellent chance of a reversal,” she said about the decision by Judge Robert C. Gallo.

Biancheria said that she and the plaintiffs were discussing the future of the case, but that they were “well set for an appeal.”

“He didn’t do anything except restate his former position with a few tweaks,” Biancheria said, adding that the decision went in the “polar-opposite direction” from some recent state court decisions.

Without the permanent injunction, the case would have gone before the Pittsburgh Commission on Human Relations.

Gallo, whose four-page opinion was released Monday, said the commission could not hear the case because it lacks jurisdiction under law for such matters, according to report in the Tuesday, Jan. 13 issue of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

The commission, after reviewing the case in 1997 and finding probable cause of discrimination on the part of Pitt, planned to hear the case in September 1999. Gallo ruled over the suit Pitt filed in response, however, and granted a temporary injunction, delaying the 1999 hearing. Under his new ruling, the hearing will not occur.

Gallo wrote in his ruling this time that Pitt “has no legal obligation … to offer [a] medical insurance benefit under its health insurance program to the domestic partners of its employees,” according to the Post-Gazette.

The Post-Gazette reported that Gallo also wrote that “the university has demonstrated that its right to relief is clear.”

But while Gallo’s ruling disappointed Biancheria, the ACLU attorney found more frustration in Pitt’s response – a lawyer representing Pitt described the decision as a vindication to the Post-Gazette.

Pitt’s attitude, Biancheria said, was even more disappointing than the decision.

“The sad fact is that the University just won for itself, at least temporarily, the right to discriminate against its employees,” she said. “And from the comments in the papers, they’re out there celebrating.”

Pitt’s Vice Chancellor for Public Affairs Robert Hill released a statement in response to Gallo’s ruling.

“Although the University of Pittsburgh always maintained that litigation was not the proper forum to settle the issue of domestic partner health insurance benefits, we are, of course, pleased that the court agrees with our legal positions that the city ordinance never required us to offer the benefits and that using marriage as a basis for offering the benefits is not discriminatory,” Hill wrote.

Hill said last year that a committee Pitt organized to study the effects of granting full benefits to the same-sex partners of employees recommended a multilateral solution, with every state-related university working together.

“We’re still hopeful for resolution along those lines,” Hill said in January 2003, less than a month before Temple University, a state-related college with a relationship to the state comparable to Pitt’s, began providing benefits for the domestic partners of its employees.

Biancheria said that support for the plaintiffs has grown over the course of the case.

“[Pitt’s] going to be the last university in the country to do this,” Biancheria said. “I don’t know if I’d be proud of that.”

But Sean McCarthy, the social chair for Rainbow Alliance, did not see the judge’s ruling as the end of the fight.

“This is something that we really want to fight for, and this is something that we really believe in,” McCarthy said.

“I think we still have a fight, as long as people care,” he added. “I don’t think we’re done.”

Asked what he believed could be done to improve the chances of the case in the future, McCarthy replied that he thinks education is an important factor in the issue.

“There are people who still don’t know about what’s going on,” McCarthy explained, adding that he feels more people would disagree with Pitt if they understood the details of the case.

“It’s all about organization and group power over the situation,” McCarthy said. He considers persistence to be a big help in gaining support and bringing about change.

The ACLU is representing The Pitt News in the Act 199 lawsuit.