NYC Agrees Benefits Denial Unfair in LGBTQ+ Fertility Case (1)

A former New York City attorney and his husband were unfairly denied IVF benefits through its fertility subcontractor, the city said during a phone conference on the couple’s sex discrimination suit.

Corey Briskin and his husband Nicholas Maggipinto were denied IVF coverage because they were unable to meet the definition of “infertility” under the city’s guidelines, which requires 12 months of intercourse or multiple rounds of intrauterine insemination before approval. But the couple’s sexual orientation should have prompted the city’s fertility benefit manager, WinFertility, to set aside that test under NYC guidance, city attorney Shemori Corinthian said Thursday.

“We do acknowledge that this was an issue for our subcontractor,” she said.

The New York federal court case will test the reach of the US Supreme Court’s 2020 Bostock v. Clayton County decision, which expanded the definition of sex discrimination under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act to include an employee’s sexual orientation and gender identity. LGBTQ+ patients have filed a series of lawsuits against employers and insurance companies in recent years under both Title VII and the Affordable Care Act’s Section 1557.

The couple is seeking class certification in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, accusing the city of discriminating against gay male employees in the plan’s IVF benefits.

The city maintains that the denial issues were fixed in October of 2023, but plaintiff attorney Peter Romer-Friedman said Briskin and Maggipinto were never granted coverage.

“We have yet to see that policy in writing or in practice,” he told Bloomberg Law.

City officials previously argued Briskin and Maggipinto were asking for surrogacy benefits, which are not covered for any employee. But Romer-Friedman said they were only seeking benefits for services like egg retrieval and fertilization.

That is likely to remain a point of contention. New York City Office of Labor Relations Deputy Commissioner Daniel Pollak told the city council in June that services like egg retrieval also might not be covered if the egg donor is not enrolled in the plan. Egg retrieval typically runs between $10,000 to $30,000 for each cycle, while procuring frozen donor eggs can cost around $20,000, he said.

NYC Mayor Eric Adams’ office said it had no additional comments on the case. WinFertility did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Briskin and Maggipinto are represented by Peter Romer-Friedman Law PLLC.

The case is Briskin v. City of New York, S.D.N.Y., No. 1:24-cv-03557, Conference held 9/19/24.