the section being argued was not 15-312 but in fact section 15-314. In a unanimous decision, the court ruled that the law's dissimilar treatment based on sex was unconstitutional.
"to give a mandatory preference to members of either sex over members of the other, merely to accomplish the elimination of hearings on the merits, is to make the very kind of arbitrary legislative choice forbidden by the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment."