Civil Rights
Nov. 28, 2001
Equal Protection
In many ways, committed lesbian and gay relationships used to be invisible to the legal system. Case after case treated same-sex couples who had devoted their lives to one another as nothing more than strangers or, at best, roommates. For example, in Coons v. Joseph, 192 Cal.App.3d 1269 (1987), a man who witnessed another man, whom he described as his "life partner," being physically assaulted was not allowed to recover for negligent infliction of emotional distress based on cases that refused to extend "bystander liability" to "'friends or housemates.'"
By Jon W. Davidson
In many ways, committed lesbian and gay relationships used to be invisible to the legal system. Case after case treated same-sex couples who had devoted their lives to one another as nothing more than strangers or, at best, roommates. For example, in Coons v. Joseph, 192 Cal.App.3d 1269 (1...
In many ways, committed lesbian and gay relationships used to be invisible to the legal system. Case after case treated same-sex couples who had devoted their lives to one another as nothing more than strangers or, at best, roommates. For example, in Coons v. Joseph, 192 Cal.App.3d 1269 (1...
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