Altitude Express, Inc. v. Zarda

Altitude Express, Inc.v. Zarda
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued October 8, 2019 Decided June 15, 2020
Full case name	Altitude Express, Inc., et al. v. Melissa Zarda, as Executor of the Estate of Donald Zarda, et al.
Docket no.	17-1623
Citations	590 U.S. ___ (more)
Case history
Prior	Summary judgment granted, No. 2:10-cv-04334 (E.D.N.Y. Mar 28, 2014); affirmed, 855 F.3d 76 (2d Cir. 2017); reversed, 883 F.3d 100 (en banc, 2d Cir. 2018)
Holding
An employer who fires an individual merely for being gay or transgender violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed.
Court membership
Chief Justice John Roberts Associate Justices Clarence Thomas · Ruth Bader Ginsburg Stephen Breyer · Samuel Alito Sonia Sotomayor · Elena Kagan Neil Gorsuch · Brett Kavanaugh
Case opinions
Majority	Gorsuch, joined by Roberts, Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, Kagan
Dissent	Alito, joined by Thomas
Dissent	Kavanaugh

Altitude Express, Inc. v. Zarda, 590 U.S. ___ (2020), is a landmark^[1] United States Supreme Court civil rights case which ruled that under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 employees could not be discriminated against on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.

The case involved Donald Zarda, a skydiving instructor for Altitude Express who had told a female customer of his gay identity to make her more comfortable being attached to him during a skydive. She and her boyfriend later expressed their objections to Altitude, leading to Zarda's dismissal on the claim of misconduct. Zarda filed suit in 2014 on the basis of employment discrimination, and though Zarda died in a parachuting accident that year, his family continued the legal battle.

The District Court ruled in favor of Altitude Express in Zarda v. Altitude Express, and this ruling was affirmed by a 3-0 ruling of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. However, the Second Circuit agreed to rehear the case en banc, and then ruled in a 10-3 decision that Title VII does protect employees from discrimination based on sexual orientation, adding to a circuit split. The Supreme Court accepted Altitude Express's petition and consolidated the case alongside Bostock v. Clayton County, a similar case of sexual orientation discrimination from the Eleventh Circuit but which ruled that Title VII did not cover such discrimination. Oral arguments were heard on October 8, 2019, alongside the case R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes Inc. v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission which dealt with Title VII and employment protections for transgender people. The Court ruled in a 6–3 decision for Bostock, covering all three cases, on June 15, 2020, that Title VII protections do apply to gay and transgender persons.