Suit seeks to force New York City to cover IVF costs for gay male municipal workers

An ex-prosecutor and his husband filed a class-action lawsuit Thursday against New York City  for denying insurance coverage to gay male municipal workers who want to use in vitro fertilization to have biological children.

A 43-page document, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, says the city is unlawfully discriminating against the plaintiffs — Corey Briskin, age 35, and Nicholas Maggipinto, 38, and potentially thousands of others — by granting IVF benefits provided in municipal health insurance to single women and couples with at least one female partner but denying such coverage to same-sex male couples.

“For thousands of gay men who have worked for the City and their partners — including Corey Briskin and Nicholas Maggipinto — IVF is the only feasible way to conceive a child,” their lawyer, Peter Romer-Friedman, wrote in the complaint, adding: “By denying gay men access to IVF — principally the retrieval and fertilization of eggs — the City of New York, Mayor Eric L. Adams, and other City leaders have unlawfully discriminated against gay male City employees and their partners.”

The lawsuit is the latest development in the couple's dispute with the city. In 2022, the men filed a discrimination claim against the city with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The men asked the agency to close its investigation so that they could sue.

At issue is whether a municipal employee is considered “infertile,” a condition that the city defines as the inability to conceive a child through male-female unprotected sexual intercourse over a consecutive 12-month period or through intrauterine insemination, according to the lawsuit.

In IVF, eggs are collected from ovaries and fertilized in a laboratory by sperm.

In an emailed statement, Liz Garcia, a spokesperson for Mayor Eric Adams, who is a defendant in his official capacity, did not deny that the plaintiffs were excluded from the benefits.

“The Adams administration proudly supports the rights of LGBTQ+ New Yorkers to access the health care they need. The city has been a leader in offering IVF treatments for any city employee or dependent covered by the city’s health plan who has shown proof of infertility, regardless of gender identity or sexual orientation. The city will review the details of the complaint.”

Romer-Friedman said the couple — both lawyers who have been together since 2011, married since 2016 and now residents of Williamsburg, Brooklyn — has since gone through the process of getting donated eggs, fertilized with each of their sperm, and are hoping for implantation sometime this year. They have spent tens of thousands of dollars in the process, and Briskin ultimately decided to leave the public sector and go into private practice to help pay for IVF out of pocket.

The couple is not seeking to cover costs related to surrogates — the woman who carries the pregnancy — which are not covered under municipal health insurance for anyone.

The suit seeks damages, as well as attorneys fees and findings that the city is violating the Civil Rights Act, state and city human rights laws, and the constitutions of New York and United States, and orders for a policy reversal, and certification as a class action.

Briskin is still on the city insurance plan under COBRA, the Continuation of Health Coverage policy.

If the city policy were reversed, Romer-Friedman said, “It will mean that ordinary workers who have modest salaries — like teachers or cops or garbage people — can get the IVF they need to grow their families. It’s incredibly costly to go through this process.”

There is legislation pending before the City Council that would extend IVF benefits beyond the current criteria. Romer-Friedman said it would help couples like his clients prospectively but the lawsuit wouldn’t be moot because it seeks to recoup the money Maggipinto, Briskin and other gay men who were denied benefits had to spend out of pocket.

Before he was an assistant district attorney in Manhattan, Briskin had also been an assistant district attorney in Nassau County. The couple’s wedding was officiated, in 2016, by the then-former Nassau district attorney, Kathleen M. Rice, who had become a congresswoman at the time of the ceremony, according to a New York Times wedding announcement. Maggipinto’s family is from Wheatley Heights, the announcement said.

By Matthew Chayes

matthew.chayes@newsday.comchayesmatthew

Matthew Chayes, a Newsday reporter since 2007, covers New York City.