Senate Bill S584A

                                 BILL NUMBER:  S584

 TITLE OF BILL :  An act to amend the executive law, in relation to
eligibility of domestic partners for compensation from the crime
victims' board

 PURPOSE :  This bill would allow people maintaining significant and
long-term, yet not legally formalized, relationships with homicide
victims to be eligible for compensation from the Crime Victims Board
for actual out of pocket losses and counseling expenses such people
would include, for example, elderly siblings or relatives sharing
living quarters in a mutually interdependent relationship, adult
partners in long-term committed relationships not formalized by
marriage and those who have parent-child relationships but have not
entered into a formal adoption arrangement.

 SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS :

Section 1 would amend section 624 of the Executive Law to include
domestic partner as a person who would be eligible for compensation
from the Crime Victims Board when the victim died as a direct result
of such crime.

Section 2 would amend section 624 of the Executive Law to add a new
subdivision defining domestic partner. Domestic partner is defined as
someone who is either in a domestic partnership, named as the
              

beneficiary or covered person under the other person's employment or
insurance benefits, or is dependent or mutually interdependent on the
other person for support.

Section 3 amends section 626 of the executive law to add counseling
for surviving family members who are already eligible under section
626 as an acceptable out of pocket loss.

Section 4 provides the effective date.

 JUSTIFICATION :  Currently, the Crime Victims Board has no authority
to compensate family members of homicide victims unless such persons
are a relative listed explicitly in Exec. 1. sec. 624 or unless they
are principally dependent on the victim for financial support. In the
absence of such financial dependence, a long-term living companion, or
a person in a parent child relationship not formalized by an adoption
order, may not recover under the current statute.

A recent trend in New York has been to broaden the definition of
family to include persons who maintain long-term substantial
relationships but not formalized by marriage licenses or orders of
adoption. In fact, in response to the World Trade Center attack on
September 11, 2001, the Governor extended the definition of family to
domestic partners of victims of the attack in order to make them
eligible for compensation.

In addition, BRASCHI V. STAHL ASSOCIATES CO., 74 N.Y.2d 201, (1989),
the Court of Appeals stated that for purposes of protection from
eviction under the New York City rent control law, the term "family"
not be rigidly restricted to those people who have formalized their
relationship by obtaining, for instance, a marriage certificate or an
adoption order.. but instead should find its foundation in the reality
of family life.

ID., at 211. Such persons are readily distinguishable from "mere
roommates",. ID. at 212. New York City recently initiated a new policy
on paid bereavement leave for City employees who live with a partner
outside of marriage. The impact of a partner's death despite the lack
of legal formalization of a relationship is recognized by this

legislation. Although the Crime Victims Board statute already defines
"family" very broadly,

Exec., L, sec. 621 (4), definition is currently used only for narrow
purposes and not to determine who should receive compensation for out
of pocket loss and counseling expenses, Those persons within this
broader definition of family are no less traumatized by the crime-
caused death of a person with whom they maintain a committed
relationship than are those who have legally formalized their
relationship prior to the commission of the crime.

By combining the existing statutory definition of "family" with a
requirement that the claimant show that he or she had a long-term
interdependent relationship with the victim, the statute would more
clearly reflect societal changes and would more fairly compensate
those whose lives are forever changed by the homicide of a loved one.

 LEGISLATIVE HISTORY :  2014: S215/A4024- REFERRED TO CRIME VICTIMS,
CRIME AND CORRECTION/Passed Assembly 2013: S215/A4024- REFERRED TO
CRIME VICTIMS, CRIME AND CORRECTION/Passed Assembly 2012: S629/A3592-
REFERRED TO CRIME VICTIMS, CRIME AND CORRECTION/Passed Assembly 2011:
S629/A3592- REFERRED TO CRIME VICTIMS, CRIME AND CORRECTION/Passed
Assembly 2010: S1422/A4089 (Schneiderman)- REPORTED AND COMMITTED TO
RULES/Passed Assembly

Also passed Assembly in 2009, and advanced to third reading calendar
in Assembly from 2006-2008

 FISCAL IMPLICATIONS :  The Crime Victims Board has estimated that
approximately $28,000 per year from existing appropriations would be
required to cover awards to the additional eligible claimants under
this bill.

 EFFECTIVE DATE :  This act shall take effect on the one hundred
eightieth day after it shall have become law.