This is a wonderful law for wounded spouses or for people with horrible inlaws or corrupt clergy or therapists. And also to protect an intact family.
But, for a bystander, there does not seem to be any defense at all for aa or criminal conversation. Nothing really has to be proven except that there was contact between two people and the spouse of one didn’t like that. A sex act does not have to be witnessed. The bystander could have been told s/he was single and believed that and still be in trouble. What about something happening one time in an unusually stressful situation. Like war? As for AA, even if it’s the married person initiating all the contact, s/he is held innocent and the outsider is liable.
Isn’t this a hothouse for unethical lawyers to flourish?
Every ad I’ve seen regarding this encourages the consumer to hire that lawyer for pursuing a suit against a third party.
I have not seen any lawyer offer to defend against that kind of suit.
How can there be a law on the books for which there is absolutely no defense?
And judges are awarding abusive penalties.
They are silly laws indeed, only remaining on the books because no politician wants to be seen as anti family. Most family law attorneys actually oppose these laws as they are most commonly used to “extort” higher alimony payments at the time of the divorce. It is quite easy to find an attorney who passionately believes that these laws are wrong and who will defend against these actions. As for attorneys who solicit for people to sue, the offended spouse is the only one who can get this party started, so of course they are the one that a less than scrupulous attorney would pursue.
There are a million different defenses under this law, it isn’t as if the third party is a sitting duck. I won’t get into what they are here.
Keep in mind that it is the plaintiff who must prove that the affections of the marriage were intact prior to the 3rd party being part of the picture, and that the 3rd party was the cause of the affections being alienated. That is pretty hard to do.
These cases are very expensive for a plaintiff to pursue, and it is very unlikely that they will be successful. You don’t hear about all of the suits which were never filed or dropped for lack of a strong case, you only hear about the ones which are successfully prosecuted.
Hopefully NC will get rid of this legalized method of extortion and put these ancient laws to rest. Married couples should own the responsibility for their marriages, not third parties. I wonder how many marriages might be saved if the couple was looking at their relationship, and their role in it’s disintegration, rather than looking to blame outside parties.