Vallejos v Commissioner of Registration
Vallejos and Daniel Domingo appealed their cases to the Court of Final Appeal, and were respectively assigned the case numbers FACV 19 and 20/2012. They would be represented before the CFA by Michael Fordham; David Pannick continued to represent the Government. Chief Justice Geoffrey Ma rejected a further application for joinder by eight-year-old Liang Wing-ki, the Hong Kong-born daughter of mainland parents, whose next friend, mother Li Yinxian, filed suit on her behalf. Philip Dykes, for the applicant, argued that because Vallejos and Domingo's case would touch on issues of interpretation of the Basic Law under Article 158, Liang's interests would also be affected. In rejecting Liang's application, Ma stated: "We feel that the points you seem to argue are adequately covered and will be adequately covered". Liang and other Hong Kong-born children like her were ruled to be entitled to the right of abode in Hong Kong in the 2001 case "Director of Immigration v. Chong Fung Yuen".
Mary Bonauto
In March 2009, Bonauto and GLAD, along with co-counsel from Foley Hoag, Jenner & Block, and Sullivan & Worcester, filed in U.S. District Court in Boston a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). The case claims that the federal definition of marriage created by DOMA to exclude married same-sex couples from all federal marital protections violates equal protection guarantees. U.S. District Judge Joseph L. Tauro heard oral arguments from Bonauto and co-counsel on the merits of the case on May 6, 2010. On July 8, 2010, Judge Tauro ruled that Section 3 of DOMA is unconstitutional with respect to claims brought by the seven married same-sex couples and three widowers from Massachusetts GLAD is representing in the case. The Department of Justice will now decide whether to appeal the ruling. On October 12, 2010 the Department of Justice filed a notice to appeal the District Court ruling. On May 31, 2012 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit upheld the District Court decision finding section 3 of DOMA unconstitutional. In July 2012 the Department of Justice filed a petition for certiorari in the United States Supreme Court but the petition was denied in the wake of the Court’s landmark decision in "United States v. Windsor" that Section 3 of DOMA was unconstitutional.