# Cote-Whitacre v. Department of Public Health

> Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · March 30, 2006 · 446 Mass. 350

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/6453377

## Case

- **Full name:** Sandra Cote-Whitacre & others v. Department of Public Health & others (and a companion case)
- **Court:** Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
- **Decided:** March 30, 2006
- **Citations:** 446 Mass. 350
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Opinion of the court
- **Judges:** Greaney, Ireland, Marshall, Spina
- **Cited by:** 49 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/6453377

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- stating that “it appears” that Rhode Island positive law does not expressly prohibit same-sex marriage
- noting that Chief Justice Marshall “disagree(s) only with Justice Spina’s overly broad construction of G.L.c. 207, §12”

## Opinion text

By the Court.
The orders denying the plaintiffs’ motions for preliminary injunction in these cases are affirmed. A majority of the Justices also agree that, as to the plaintiffs who reside in Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont, a judgment for the defendants shall enter in the Superior Court because same-sex marriage is prohibited in those States. As to the New York and Rhode Island plaintiffs, their cases shall proceed in the Superior Court, on an expedited basis, for a determination whether same-sex marriage is prohibited in those States.
So ordered.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/6453377. Public record. Not legal advice.