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in Washington's Supreme Court Frank Vasquez's Companion of 27 Years Died without a Will Relatives Now Seek Couples' Business and All Other Assets |
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Compiled By GayToday
Lambda had urged the Court to hear the appeal in Vasquez v. Hawthorne. Frank Vasquez, who had shared a home and business with Robert Schwerzler, his life partner of 27 years, who died in 1995 without a will. Washington state's highest court agreed Wednesday to hear the appeal. In 1997, Schwerzler's relatives sought to take over the men's business and all their other assets, including their home in Puyallup, Washington. The property that the two acquired together during their relationship is valued at $230,000. A trial court upheld Vasquez's claims to the property under a state equitable doctrine, and the relatives appealed.
The Court of Appeals ruling, issued last February, treats Vasquez as a legal stranger to the property he and Schwerzler built up over the years they spent together as business and domestic partners. The result, devastating both to Vasquez and to lesbian and gay families in the state, is the basis for the appeal to the state's top court. Lambda and the Northwest Women's Law Center filed separate friend-of-the-court briefs arguing that courts should not create a special barrier to people in same-sex relationships who need the protections of the law. Said Pizer, author of Lambda's brief in the case: "The law must not turn its back on same-sex couples, who feel the same emotional devastation as do those in different-sex relationships upon the death of a life partner. "When financial crisis accompanies such a loss, lesbian and gay families need the same sensible remedies that other unmarried couples rely on to resolve property disputes in a fair manner." (Vasquez v. Hawthorne, No. 22616-2-II) |
