Reply to Alienation of affection

Forum Index » Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)

Reply to "Alienation of affection"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Marriage is a contract. It’s a publicly available contract.

If you break a contract or you aided  somebody in breaking a contract, those somebodies should be sued for what breaking that contract cost the offended partyand pain and suffering just like every other contract.[/quote]

If you breach, sure. But if you aren't married, you have no contract to breach. The idea that the non-married AP has some sort of duty to care for the party being cheated on is a wild overreach. The cheater is the liable party. Anybody going after an AP is an idiot. Go after the person you have a contract with, sure. Who they breached with is immaterial (unless it's, like, your sibling or something egregious). That they breached is the relevant matter.[/quote]

Not according to the law in these states. [/quote]

From a lawyer:

“ In order to sue someone, you need what lawyers call a "cause of action" - a legally-recognized reason. The person you're suing must have owed you a duty; they must have breached that duty; and you must have suffered a cognizable - that is, real and measurable - harm as a result. Everyone owes one another a duty of reasonable care, so if someone fails to act with reasonable care and you are injured as a result, in a way that they could or should have been able to foresee, you may be able to sue them for negligence - for neglecting that duty of reasonable care. However, you also have an affirmative responsibility to use reasonable care yourself. If you were injured as a result of your own negligence, then you are not owed recompense by anyone else.

In any case, a court in a negligence or other tort case can only award you damages (an award of money to be paid by the defendant) equal to the harm you actually suffered. Suits for merely emotional damages, without any underlying physical injury, are not always per se impossible -- but they usually are. To prevail, you must plead, and prove, that the person you're suing engaged in "extreme and outrageous behavior" -- something that "shocks the conscience" of ordinary persons. Examples from the past have included things like: killing someone else before one's own eyes; engaging in an elaborate ruse to convince one that death was imminent; that sort of thing. Having an extramarital affair is not "extreme and outrageous" -- it is sadly banal.

Furthermore, you must also prove that whatever mental health problems you have now were caused directly by the defendant's conduct, and not by anything else. This requires turning over all your mental health records as evidence. The defendant has the right to have you examined by their own mental health professional, to try to prove that your mental problems are not the result of their own conduct, but are a pre-existing condition or caused by something else. In short, they have both a right and a duty to try to prove that you are just plain nuts.

Here is the big picture: The courts do not exist to validate feelings or resolve personal acrimony. They are there to resolve conflicts that society cannot tolerate - and they do it far from perfectly.

People have this notion that suing someone will be this glorious redemptive process, where their every injury will be avenged and all their feelings validated. This belief is staggeringly wrong. Lawsuits are intensely unpleasant. They force the parties to live through whatever injuries they originally suffered, for months or years. You have to answer tons of difficult questions, over and over again, and if you change your story even a bit, you can be sunk. They rarely go perfectly - the law often produces results that one side or another considers to be unjust, for technical reasons - or just because "justice" is a pretty subjective concept. The other side has every motive, and every right, to attack your honesty, your conduct, and your motives - or, in this case, your previous mental health. And, of course, you need to shell out a fairly large amount of money, most of the time, when suing someone. This is true even if your lawyer is working for a contingent fee, where they don't get paid if they win (which they'd only be willing to do if the person you're suing is independently wealthy, or insured - otherwise, no recovery will be possible even if you do win). And it's certainly true if you lose, and you have to pay the other side's attorney fees, which can be huge. So you really need to think carefully before you embark on any litigation. The right to sue is a critical one in our democracy, but it must be the last resort for solving problems, not the first. Lawsuits are often critical for seeking redress to serious injuries - but are not appropriate responses to marital infidelity. I would urge you to continue in counseling. Blaming others for your marriage's problems is not likely the answer”

There’s a lot of big talkers on this thread about how they’d sue everyone involved.

But they’d all chicken out when they actually have to hand over all their mental health records and get examined by mental health professionals.

Reality is, nobody wins these cases, even in the states that allow them. Most attorneys won’t touch them.

It’s a GOOD thing. These laws were based historically on women being property. We don’t want to go back to that. [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics