Facts
- Jane Doe was in an unmarried same-sex relationship and cohabited with her partner.
- Doe alleged she was the victim of a domestic-violence incident committed by her former partner.
- Doe sought an order of protection and other statutory remedies available to victims of domestic violence under South Carolina law.
- The family court denied relief, reasoning Doe did not qualify as a protected “household member” because the relevant statutes defined certain unmarried cohabitants as “a male and female who are cohabiting or formerly have cohabited.”
- The challenged provisions appeared in South Carolina’s domestic-violence statutory scheme, including S.C. Code Ann. § 16-25-10(3)(d) and a parallel definition in the civil protection statute, each limiting coverage to opposite-sex unmarried cohabitants.
- Doe petitioned the Supreme Court of South Carolina, which accepted the case in its original jurisdiction, seeking a declaration that the gender-specific cohabitation definition violated the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment.
- Doe argued that excluding same-sex cohabitants denied similarly situated victims access to protective orders and related relief solely because of the sex composition of the relationship.
Issues
- Whether South Carolina’s definition of “household member,” limited to “a male and female who are cohabiting or formerly have cohabited,” violates the Fourteenth Amendment by denying same-sex cohabitants access to domestic-violence remedies available to opposite-sex cohabitants.
- If unconstitutional, whether the proper remedy is to remove (sever/strike) the gender-specific cohabitation subsection while leaving the remainder of the domestic-violence statutes in effect.
Decision
- The Supreme Court of South Carolina held that limiting domestic-violence protections to unmarried opposite-sex cohabitants, while excluding unmarried same-sex cohabitants, violated the Equal Protection Clause.
- The court concluded the State lacked a constitutionally sufficient reason to deny same-sex cohabitants the same statutory protections afforded to opposite-sex cohabitants who were otherwise in the same position as victims of domestic violence.
- Relying on the statutes’ severability provisions and the ability of the remaining statutory scheme to function as intended, the court struck the offending gender-specific cohabitation subsection from the relevant domestic-violence statutes rather than invalidating the entire enactments.
- The court issued declaratory relief, which had the effect of allowing Doe to seek the same domestic-violence remedies that the statutes afforded to opposite-sex cohabitants.
Legal Principles
- The Equal Protection Clause bars a state from granting domestic-violence protections to unmarried opposite-sex cohabitants while withholding the same protections from unmarried same-sex cohabitants who are similarly situated as victims seeking relief.
- A statutory classification that turns on the sex composition of a couple must, at minimum, rest on a reasonable justification connected to a legitimate governmental objective; excluding one class of victims from protective remedies without such justification is unconstitutional.
- When a statute contains a severability clause and the remainder of the statutory scheme can operate independently and consistently with legislative purpose, a court may strike the unconstitutional portion and leave the balance in force.
- Declaratory judgment is an available remedy to resolve a constitutional defect in statutory definitions that control eligibility for protective orders and related domestic-violence relief.
Conclusion
In Jane Doe v. State of South Carolina, the Supreme Court of South Carolina, exercising original jurisdiction, ruled that the domestic-violence statutes’ definition of “household member” could not constitutionally restrict unmarried cohabitant coverage to “a male and female,” and the court granted declaratory relief by striking the gender-specific cohabitation language so same-sex cohabitants were not excluded from statutory protections.