New York Appeals Court Vacates Lower Court Ruling That Failed to Respect Canadian Marriage

Will wrote:

The Appellate Division did not decide the case on the merits -- it merely dismissed the case and vacated the earlier trial division decision because the case was moot, i.e., there was no longer any actual controversy to be decided between the parties.
No big whoop.

Judged:

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DNF wrote:

<quoted text>The Appellate Court's decision to vacate the lower court's ruling follows now uniform decisions by a number of other New York courts that out-of-state marriages of same-sex couples are entitled to respect in New York.

Will wrote:

<quoted text>
Nevertheless, this Appellate Division ruling was NOT A DECISION ON THE MERITS, since the case was MOOT -- in FACT, vacating the original trial court ruling AGAINST recognition of the Canadian same-sex marriage in a moot case was AN EXTRAORDINARY MOVE by this Appellate Division, which justified its extraordinary move by stating that "the [trial court's] orders could spawn adverse legal consequences for the plaintiff or be used as precedent in future cases, causing confusion of the legal issues in this area of the law,...".
Clearly, the judges of some of the New York Appellate Divisions are trying to play games by eliminating rulings that may be adverse to their particular policy preferences regarding same-sex marriage -- this tactic of cherrypicking which rulings will be allowed to remain outstanding as potential precedent is transparently biased.
FYI, in the case of Martinez v. Monroe County, the County has already appealed to the New York Court of Appeals regarding the issue of recognition of Canadian same-sex marriages.
So...stay tuned.