Court Opinion

ID: 9788621
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 01:12:59.152445+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:15.022319
License: Public Domain

KENNARD, J., Concurring and Dissenting.
I concur in the judgment, except insofar as it declares void some 4,000 marriages performed in reliance on the gender-neutral marriage licenses1 issued in the City and County of San Francisco. Although I agree with the majority that San Francisco public officials exceeded their authority when they issued those licenses, and that the licenses themselves are therefore invalid, I would refrain from determining here, in a proceeding from which the persons whose marriages are at issue have been excluded, the validity of the marriages solemnized under those licenses. That determination should be made after the constitutionality of California laws restricting marriage to opposite-sex couples has been authoritatively resolved through judicial proceedings now pending in the courts of California.
I
Like the majority, I conclude that officials in the City and County of San Francisco exceeded their authority when they issued gender-neutral marriage licenses to same-sex couples, and I agree with the majority that those officials may not justify their actions on the ground that state laws restricting marriage to opposite-sex couples violate the state or the federal Constitution. The cases discussed by the majority demonstrate, in my view, that a public official may refuse to enforce a statute on constitutional grounds only in these situations: *1126(1) when the statute’s unconstitutionality is obvious beyond dispute in light of unambiguous constitutional language or controlling judicial decisions; (2) when refraining from enforcement is necessary to preserve the status quo and to prevent irreparable harm pending judicial determination of a legitimate and substantial constitutional question about the statute’s validity; (3) when enforcing the statute could put the public official at risk for substantial personal liability; or (4) when refraining from enforcement is the only practical means to obtain a judicial determination of the constitutional question. (See Field, The Effect of an Unconstitutional Statute (1935, reprint ed. 1971) p. 119 et seq.; Note, Right of Ministerial Officer to Raise Defense of Unconstitutionality in Mandamus Proceeding (1931) 15 Minn. L.Rev. 340; Rapacz, Protection of Officers Who Act Under Unconstitutional Statutes (1927) 11 Minn. L.Rev. 585; Note, Who Can Set Up Unconstitutionality— Whether Public Official Has Sufficient Interest (1920) 34 Harv. L.Rev. 86.) Because none of these situations is present here, as I explain below, the public officials acted wrongly in refusing to enforce the opposite-sex restriction in California’s marriage laws.
A. Indisputably Unconstitutional Law
In restricting marriages to couples consisting of one woman and one man, California’s marriage laws are not plainly or obviously unconstitutional under either the state or the federal Constitution. Neither Constitution expressly prohibits limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples, and neither Constitution expressly grants any person a right to marry someone of the same sex. Nor does any judicial decision establish beyond reasonable dispute that restricting marriage to heterosexual couples violates any provision of the California Constitution or the United States Constitution.
Indeed, there is a decision of the United States Supreme Court, binding on all other courts and public officials, that a state law restricting marriage to opposite-sex couples does not violate the federal Constitution’s guarantees of equal protection and due process of law. After the Minnesota Supreme Court held that Minnesota laws preventing marriages between persons of the same sex did not violate the equal protection or due process clauses of the United States Constitution (Baker v. Nelson (1971) 291 Minn. 310 [191 N.W.2d 185]), the decision was appealed to the United States Supreme Court, as federal law then permitted (see 28 U.S.C. former § 1257(2), 62 Stat. 929 as amended by 84 Stat. 590). The high court later dismissed that appeal “for want of substantial federal question.” (Baker v. Nelson (1972) 409 U.S. 810 [34 L.Ed.2d 65, 93 S.Ct. 37].)
As the United States Supreme Court has explained, a dismissal on the ground that an appeal presents no substantial federal question is a decision on *1127the merits of the case, establishing that the lower court’s decision on the issues of federal law was correct. (Mandel v. Bradley (1977) 432 U.S. 173, 176 [53 L.Ed.2d 199, 97 S.Ct. 2238]; Hicks v. Miranda (1975) 422 U.S. 332, 344 [45 L.Ed.2d 223, 95 S.Ct. 2281].) Summary decisions of this kind “prevent lower courts from coming to opposite conclusions on the precise issues presented and necessarily decided by those actions.” (Mandel v. Bradley, supra, at p. 176.) Thus, the high court’s summary decision in Baker v. Nelson, supra, 409 U.S. 810, prevents lower courts and public officials from coming to the conclusion that a state law barring marriage between persons of the same sex violates the equal protection or due process guarantees of the United States Constitution.
The binding force of a summary decision on the merits continues until the high court instructs otherwise. (Hicks v. Miranda, supra, 422 U.S. at p. 344.) That court may release lower courts from the binding effect of one of its decisions on the merits either by expressly overruling that decision or through “ ‘doctrinal developments’ ” that are necessarily incompatible with that decision. (Id. at p. 344.) The United States Supreme Court has not expressly overruled Baker v. Nelson, supra, 409 U.S. 810, nor do any of its later decisions contain doctrinal developments that are necessarily incompatible with that decision.
The San Francisco public officials have argued that the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Lawrence v. Texas (2003) 539 U.S. 558 [156 L.Ed.2d 508, 123 S.Ct. 2472], holding unconstitutional a state law “making it a crime for two persons of the same sex to engage in certain intimate sexual conduct” (id. at p. 562), amounts to a doctrinal development that releases courts and public officials from any obligation to obey the high court’s decision in Baker v. Nelson, supra, 409 U.S. 810. Although Lawrence represents a significant shift in the high court’s view of constitutional protections for same-sex relationships, the majority in Lawrence carefully pointed out that “there is no longstanding history in this country of laws directed at homosexual conduct as a distinct matter” (Lawrence v. Texas, supra, at p. 568) and that the case “d[id] not involve whether the government must give formal recognition to any relationship that homosexual persons seek to enter” (id. at p. 578). Because there is a long history in this country of defining marriage as a relation between one man and one woman, and because marriage laws do involve formal government recognition of relationships, the high court’s decision in Lawrence did not undermine the authority of Baker v. Nelson to such a degree that a lower federal or state court, much less a public official, could disregard it. Until the United States Supreme Court says otherwise, which it has not yet done, Baker v. Nelson defines federal constitutional law on the question whether a state may deny same-sex couples the right to marry.
*1128Because neither the federal nor the California Constitution contains any provision directly and expressly guaranteeing a right to marry another person of the same sex, and because no court has ever decided that either Constitution confers that right, this is not a situation in which a public official refused to enforce a law that was obviously and indisputably unconstitutional.
B. Preserving the Status Quo to Prevent Serious Harm
Nor was this a situation in which a public official, by temporarily refraining from enforcing a state law, merely preserved the status quo to prevent potentially irreparable harm pending judicial determination of a legitimate and substantial constitutional question about the law’s validity. By issuing licenses authorizing same-sex marriages, the San Francisco public officials did not preserve a status quo, but instead they altered the status quo in that California law has always prohibited same-sex marriage.
In 1977, the Legislature amended Family Code section 300 to specify that marriage is a relation “between a man and a woman.” (See maj. opn., ante, at p. 1076, fn. 11.) At the March 2000 election, the voters approved Proposition 22, which enacted Family Code section 308.5 declaring that “[o]nly marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.”2 But those statutory measures did not change existing law. Since the earliest days of statehood, California has recognized only opposite-sex marriages. (See, e.g., Mott v. Mott (1890) 82 Cal. 413, 416 [22 P. 1140] [quoting legal dictionary’s definition of marriage as a contract “ ‘by which a man and woman reciprocally engage to live with each other during their joint lives, and to discharge toward each other the duties imposed by law on the relation of husband and wife’ ”].) In issuing gender-neutral marriage licenses, therefore, San Francisco public officials could not have intended merely a temporary or interim preservation of an existing state of affairs pending a judicial determination of a newly enacted law’s constitutionality. Instead, as their public statements indicated, they issued those licenses to effect a fundamental and permanent change in traditional marriage eligibility requirements, based on their own views about constitutional questions. In so doing, they exceeded their authority.
C. Public Officials’ Personal Liability
This was not a situation in which public officials had reason to fear they might be held personally liable in damages for enforcing a constitutionally *1129invalid state law. In a federal civil rights action brought under 42 United States Code section 1983, a public official may not be held personally liable for enforcing a state law that violates a federal constitutional right unless the “contours of the right [are] sufficiently clear that a reasonable official would understand that what he is doing violates that right.” (Anderson v. Creighton (1987) 483 U.S. 635, 640 [97 L.Ed.2d 523, 107 S.Ct. 3034]; accord, Saucier v. Katz (2001) 533 U.S. 194, 202 [150 L.Ed.2d 272, 121 S.Ct. 2151]; Wilson v. Layne (1999) 526 U.S. 603, 614-615 [143 L.Ed.2d 818, 119 S.Ct. 1692].) Because the United States Supreme Court has determined that a state law prohibiting same-sex marriage does not violate the federal Constitution (Baker v. Nelson, supra, 409 U.S. 810), no reasonable public official could conclude that denying marriage licenses to same-sex couples would violate a right that was clearly established under the federal Constitution. Accordingly, federal civil rights law could not impose personal liability on local officials in California for enforcing California’s same-sex marriage prohibition. “[Absent contrary direction, state officials and those with whom they deal are entitled to rely on a presumptively valid state statute, enacted in good faith and by no means plainly unlawful.” (Lemon v. Kurtzman (1973) 411 U.S. 192, 208-209 [36 L.Ed.2d 151, 93 S.Ct. 1463] (plur. opn. of Burger, C. J.).)
Nor was there any reasonable basis for local officials to anticipate personal liability under the California Constitution or California civil rights laws for denying marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Government Code section 820.6 provides immunity for public employees acting in good faith, without malice, under a statute that proves to be unconstitutional. Because same-sex marriage has never been legally authorized in California, the California Constitution does not expressly grant a right to same-sex marriage, and no judicial decision by any California court has ever suggested, much less held, that state laws limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples violate the California Constitution, Government Code section 820.6 would immunize any public official from personal liability for enforcing the same-sex marriage prohibition should that prohibition, at some later time, be held to violate the California Constitution.
D. Necessity of Nonenforcement to Obtain Judicial Resolution
Finally, this is not a situation in which a public official’s nonenforcement of a law was the only practical way to obtain a judicial determination of that law’s constitutionality. Just as the constitutionality of California’s prohibition against interracial marriage was properly challenged by a mixed-race couple who were denied a marriage license (Perez v. Sharp (1948) 32 Cal.2d 711 [198 P.2d 17]), the constitutionality of California’s prohibition against same-sex marriage could have been readily challenged at any time through a lawsuit brought by a same-sex couple who had been denied a marriage *1130license. Indeed, challenges of this sort are now pending in the superior court. (See maj. opn., ante, at p. 1117.)
E. Policy Grounds for General Rule Prohibiting Nonenforcement on Constitutional Grounds
As the majority points out (maj. opn., ante, at pp. 1067-1068, 1108-1109), confusion and chaos would ensue if local public officials in each of California’s 58 counties could separately and independently decide not to enforce long-established laws with which they disagreed, based on idiosyncratic readings of broadly worded constitutional provisions. To ensure uniformity and consistency in the statewide application and enforcement of duly enacted and presumptively valid statutes, the authority of public officials to decline enforcement of state laws, in the absence of a judicial determination of invalidity, based on the officials’ own constitutional determinations, is and must be carefully and narrowly limited. I agree with the majority that San Francisco public officials exceeded those limits when they declined to enforce state marriage laws by issuing gender-neutral marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
II
Although I agree with the majority that San Francisco officials exceeded their authority when they issued gender-neutral marriage licenses to same-sex couples, I do not agree with all the reasoning that the majority offers in support of that conclusion. In particular, I do not agree that a “line of decisions” had established, before the 1978 enactment of section 3.5 of article HI of the California Constitution, that “only administrative agencies constitutionally authorized to exercise judicial power have the authority to determine the constitutional validity of statutes.” (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 1096.)
The majority does not identify any pre-1978 decision holding that a nonconstitutional administrative agency, during quasi-judicial administrative proceedings, lacked authority to determine a statute’s constitutionality. The majority asserts that this court so held in State of California v. Superior Court (Veta) (1974) 12 Cal.3d 237. (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 1092.) But this court there decided only that the doctrine of exhaustion of administrative remedies did not apply to a constitutional challenge to the statute from which the administrative agency derived its authority. (State of California v. Superior Court (Veta), supra, at p. 251.) In concluding that a litigant was not required during quasi-judicial administrative proceedings to make a constitutional challenge to the statute that created the agency, this court explained that “[i]t would be heroic indeed to compel a party to appear before an administrative body to challenge its very existence and to expect a dispassionate hearing before its *1131preponderantly lay membership on the constitutionality of the statute establishing its status and functions.” (Ibid.) This court did not state, or even imply, that an administrative agency lacked authority to resolve constitutional issues that a litigant might present.
I also see no need for, and do not join, the majority’s observations on topics far removed from the issue presented here, such as the powers of the President of the United States (maj. opn., ante, at p. 1098, fn. 26) and the existence of certain legal defenses to war crimes charges (id. at p. 1101, fn. 30). These issues are not before this court.
in
Because I agree with the majority that San Francisco’s public officials exceeded their authority when they issued gender-neutral marriage licenses to same-sex couples, I concur in the judgment insofar as it requires those officials to comply with state marriage laws, to identify the same-sex couples to whom gender-neutral marriage licenses were issued, to notify those couples that their marriage licenses are invalid, to offer refunds of marriage license fees collected, and to make appropriate corrections to all relevant records. But I would not require notification that the marriages themselves “are void from their inception and a legal nullity.” (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 1118.)
Although a marriage license is a requirement for a valid marriage (Fam. Code, §§ 300, 350), some defects in a marriage license do not invalidate the marriage. (See id., § 306; see also, e.g., Argonaut Ins. Co. v. Industrial Acc. Com. (1962) 204 Cal.App.2d 805, 809 [23 Cal.Rptr. 1] [applicant’s use of false names on license application did not invalidate marriage].) Whether the issuance of a gender-neutral license to a same-sex couple, in violation of state laws restricting marriage to opposite-sex couples, is a defect that precludes any possibility of a valid marriage may well depend upon resolution of the constitutional validity of that statutory restriction. If the restriction is constitutional, then a marriage between persons of the same sex would be a legal impossibility, and no marriage would ever have existed. But if the restriction violates a fundamental constitutional right, the situation could be quite different. A court might then be required to determine the validity of same-sex marriages that had been performed before the laws prohibiting those marriages had been invalidated on constitutional grounds.
When a court has declared a law unconstitutional, questions about the effect of that determination on prior actions, events, and transactions “are among the most difficult of those which have engaged the attention of courts, state and federal, and it is manifest from numerous decisions that an *1132all-inclusive statement of a principle of absolute retroactive invalidity cannot be justified.” (Chicot County Dist. v. Bank (1940) 308 U.S. 371, 374 [84 L.Ed. 329, 60 S.Ct. 317]; accord, Lemon v. Kurtzman, supra, 411 U.S. at p. 198.) This court has acknowledged that, in appropriate circumstances, an unconstitutional statute may be judicially reformed to retroactively extend its benefits to a class that the statute expressly but improperly excluded. (Kopp v. Fair Pol. Practices Com. (1995) 11 Cal.4th 607, 624-625 [47 Cal.Rptr.2d 108, 905 P.2d 1248] (lead opn. of Lucas, C. J.), 685 (cone. & dis. opn. of Baxter, J.) [joining in pt. III of lead opn.].) Thus, it is possible, though by no means certain, that if the state marriage laws prohibiting same-sex marriage were held to violate the state Constitution, same-sex marriages performed before that determination could then be recognized as valid.
Although the United States Supreme Court has determined that there is no right to same-sex marriage under the federal Constitution (Baker v. Nelson, supra, 409 U.S. 810), courts in other states construing their own state Constitutions in recent years have reached differing conclusions on this question. (Compare Goodridge v. Dept. of Public Health (2003) 440 Mass. 309 [798 N.E.2d 941] [denying marriage licenses to same-sex couples violates Massachusetts Constitution] with Standhardt v. Sup. Ct. (2003) 206 Ariz. 276 [77 P.3d 451] [no right to same-sex marriage under Arizona Constitution].) Recognizing the difficulty and seriousness of the constitutional question, which is now presented in pending superior court actions, this court has declined to address it in this case. Until that constitutional issue has been finally resolved under the California Constitution, it is premature and unwise to assert, as the majority essentially does, that the thousands of same-sex weddings performed in San Francisco were empty and meaningless ceremonies in the eyes of the law.
For many, marriage is the most significant and most highly treasured experience in a lifetime. Individuals in loving same-sex relationships have waited years, sometimes several decades, for a chance to wed, yearning to obtain the public validation that only marriage can give. In recognition of that, this court should proceed most cautiously in resolving the ultimate question of the validity of the same-sex marriages performed in San Francisco, even though those marriages were performed under licenses issued by San Francisco public officials without proper authority and in violation of state law. Because the licenses were issued without proper authorization, and in the absence of a judicial determination that the state laws prohibiting same-sex marriage are unconstitutional, employers and other third parties would be under no legal obligation to recognize the validity of any of the same-sex marriages at issue here. Should the pending lawsuits ultimately be resolved by a determination that the opposite-sex marriage restriction is *1133constitutionally invalid—an issue on which I express no opinion—it would then be the appropriate time to address the validity of previously solemnized same-sex marriages.

 As the majority explains, the license application was altered “by eliminating the terms ‘bride,’ ‘groom,’ and ‘unmarried man and unmarried woman,’ and by replacing them with the terms ‘first applicant,’ ‘second applicant,’ and ‘unmarried individuals.’ ” (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 1071.)

 Although California law has expressly restricted matrimony to heterosexual couples, it has also extended most of the financial and other benefits of marriage to same-sex couples through domestic partner legislation. (See, e.g., Fam. Code, § 297 et seq., Stats. 2003, ch. 421, operative Jan. 1, 2005.)