Opinion ID: 839711
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: domestic-partnership policies

Text: The tentative agreement reached by the OSE and the UAW would require domestic partners to meet the following criteria in order to receive health-insurance benefits: 1. Be at least 18 years of age. 2. Share a close personal relationship with the employee and be responsible for each other's common welfare. 3. Not have a similar relationship with any other person, and not have had a similar relationship with any other person for the prior six months. 4. Not be a member of the employee's immediate family as defined as employee's spouse, children, parents, grandparents or foster parents, grandchildren, parents-in-law, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles or cousins. 5. Be of the same gender. 6. Have jointly shared the same regular and permanent residence for at least six months, and have an intent to continue doing so indefinitely. 7. Be jointly responsible for basic living expenses, including the cost of food, shelter and other common expenses of maintaining a household. This joint responsibility need not mean that the persons contribute equally or in any particular ratio, but rather that the persons agree that they are jointly responsible. The tentative agreement also provides: In order to establish whether the criteria have been met, the employer may require the employee to sign an Affidavit setting forth the facts and circumstances which constitute compliance with those requirements. The city of Kalamazoo's Domestic Partner Benefits Policy, incorporated in its collective-bargaining agreements, provided health-insurance benefits to the domestic partners of the city's employees who met the following criteria: For the purposes of the City of Kalamazoo's program, the definition and use of the term domestic partner shall only include couples of the same sex. To be considered as domestic partners, the individuals must: A. Be at least 18 and mentally competent to enter into a contract; B. Share a common residence and have done so for at least six (6) months; C. Be unmarried and not related by blood closer than would prevent marriage; D. Share financial arrangements and daily living expenses related to their common welfare; E. File a statement of termination of previous domestic partnership at least six (6) months prior to signing another Certification of Domestic Partnership. [Emphasis in the original.] The city also required the employee and his or her domestic partner to sign a notarized certification of domestic partnership that affirmed these criteria. In addition, they were required to provide evidence of mutual economic dependence, such as a joint lease or mortgage, and evidence of a common legal residence, such as driver's licenses or voter's registrations. Finally, the city's policy provided: It is the intent of this program to provide insurance coverage and other benefits to domestic partners of the City of Kalamazoo identical to those provided to spouses of City employees. For a domestic partner to be eligible for health-insurance benefits under the University of Michigan's Same-Sex Domestic Partner Policy, the employee and his or her partner must:  Be of the same sex; and  Not be legally married to another individual; and  Not be related to each other by blood in a manner that would bar marriage; and  Have registered or declared the Domestic Partnership in the manner authorized by a municipality or other government entity;[ [2] ] and  Have allowed at least six months to pass since the dissolution of a previous same-sex domestic partnership in the manner authorized by a municipality or other government entity. Michigan State University provided health-insurance benefits to its employees' domestic partners if the employee and the domestic partner: 1. are [the] same-sex and for this reason are unable to marry each other under Michigan law, 2. are in a long-term committed relationship, have been in the relationship for at least 6 months, and intend to remain together indefinitely, 3. are not legally married to others and neither has another domestic partner, 4. are at least 18 years of age and have the capacity to enter into a contract, 5. are not related to one another closely enough to bar marriage in Michigan, 6. share a residence and have done so for more than 6 months, 7. are jointly responsible to each other for the necessities of life, and 8. provide a signed partnership agreement that obligates each of the parties to provide support for one another, and provides for substantially equal division, upon termination of the relationship, of earnings during the relationship and any property acquired with those earnings.[ [3] ]