Kerry Fadely, left, and Deborah Harris
The Alaska Supreme Court, issuing its decision today in the case of Harris V. Millenium Hotel, ruled unanimously that the same-sex partner of a person killed on the job should have access to the protection of the state’s workers’ compensation law.
Lambda Legal filed the lawsuit on behalf of Deborah Harris, whose wife, Kerry Fadely, worked at the Millenium Hotel in Anchorage and who was shot and killed by a disgruntled former employee in 2011. Fadely was employed as the food and beverage manager at the Millennium Hotel in Anchorage, Alaska. An employee who had been fired days earlier returned to the hotel with a pistol, asked for Fadely, and shot her multiple times.
Alaska’s workers’ compensation law requires employers — or their insurance companies — to pay survivor benefits to the surviving spouses of workers who died from work-related injuries. Before today’s ruling, same-sex couples were categorically denied survivor benefits because Alaska does not legally recognize same-sex marriages.
Read the Alaska Supreme Court ruling here.
Read about the case here.
