Mass. Court:
Pre-Marriage Benefits Can't Be Collected

Massachusetts's highest court ruled Thursday that same-sex marriage benefits cannot be collected retroactively, the Associated Press reported.

According to the AP, the ruling was part of a medical malpractice case brought by lesbian couple Cynthia Kalish and Michelle Charron, who was diagnosed with breast cancer a year before the couple's marriage in 2004.

After the diagnosis Charron sued her doctors, claiming a biopsy should have been performed earlier. Kalish also sued for loss of marital companionship after Charron died in 2006.

However, the lawyers defending Charron's doctors contested the loss of marital companionship, saying that the couple had not been legally married at the time of the diagnosis, according to the AP.

Charron and the couple's daughter challenged the law, saying that the couple would have been married by then had same-sex marriage been legalized earlier.

The court rejected their claim, stating that same-sex marriage benefits cannot be collected retroactively, for fear that the legal authority of marriage would be weakened, the AP reported.

Charron's lawyer, Kathy Jo Cook, told the AP, "We're saddened that the [supreme judicial court] refused to extend the basic protection of marriage to this same-sex couple and their daughter." (The Advocate)