Wal-Mart is being sued by a former employee for denying health insurance to a gay worker's wife.

Jackie Cote started working at Walmart in Maine and Massachusetts in 1999. According to NBC News, she stated in the lawsuit that her wife Diana Smithson had developed ovarian cancer in 2012. Without health insurance, the couple is faced with a $150,000 medical debt. Smithson is currently in hospice care.

In 2004, Cote and Smithson got married in Massachusetts, the first state in the country to allow same-sex marriage. Smithson left Wal-Mart in 2008 to care for Cote's elderly mother. The company kept on denying requests to add her wife to the insurance policy.

Last year, Cote filed a complaint to the U.S Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The commission concluded in January that Wal-Mart did violate gender discrimination laws. If Cote was married to a man, then Wal-Mart would have no problem granting Cote and her life partner health insurance, the commission said.

Insurance Journal reports Wal-Mart changed its insurance policy after the U.S Supreme Court ruled overturned a federal law defining marriage as only a heterosexual union in 2013. Brian Nick, a spokesman for Wal-Mart stated in an email, "Our benefits coverage previous to the 2014 update was consistent with the law."

Carisa Cuttingham, spokeswoman for Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, has defended Cote. In a statement, Cuttingham said, "We want to send a message to companies big and small that it is illegal to deny benefits to the same-sex spouses of their employees if they provide the same benefits to employees with opposite-sex spouses."

Cote is seeking a court order that Wal-Mart legally requires to offer the benefits.