California Court of Appeal

Defendant's policies discriminate only on the basis of marital status, not on the basis of gender or sexual orientation, and the Unruh Civil Rights Act does not preclude a country club from limiting membership benefits based on marital status. A triable issue of fact remains, however, as to whether defendant granted unmarried heterosexual couples family membership privileges while denying those same privileges to homosexual couples.

Appellate Information

• Decided 03/08/2004
• Published 03/08/2004

Judges

• NARES, J.

Court

• California Court of Appeal

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, Inc., Jon W. Davidson;  and H. Paul Kondrick, San Diego, for Plaintiffs and Appellants., Jordan C. Budd for ACLU Foundation of San Diego & Imperial Counties;  James D. Esseks, New York, NY, and Romana Mancini for ACLU Foundation Lesbian & Gay Rights Project;  Miranda D. Junowicz and Steven C. Sheinberg for Anti-Defamation League;  Nancy-Hogshead Makar for Women's Sports Foundation;  Nancy M. Solomon for California Women's Law Center;  and Shannon Minter and Courtney Joslin for National Center for Lesbian Rights as Amici Curiae on behalf of Plaintiffs and Appellants.


• For Appellees:
  
• Morrison & Foerster, John R. Shiner, Los Angeles, and Rick Bergstrom, San Diego, for Defendant and Respondent.