Court Opinion

ID: 9685242
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 14:26:57.010488+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:03.607862
License: Public Domain

McCown, J.,
dissenting.
The majority opinion perpetuates the anachronistic common law cause of action for criminal conversation with all its traditional legal rules and boundaries upon the ground that “this court has consistently upheld a spouse’ right of recovery for criminal conversation.”
The majority opinion proceeds upon two assumptions. It assumes first that the rules of law relating to a common law cause of action for criminal conversation cannot or should not be altered or modified but, instead, assumes that the common law cause of action for criminal conversation with all its *474traditional interpretations must either be completely retained or completely abolished. The second assumption is that only the Legislature can alter, amend, or abolish a common law cause of action for criminal conversation, and that any judicial attempt to alter common law rules which courts have traditionally applied to a cause of action for criminal conversation is a usurpation of legislative authority and a forbidden intrusion into “social policy-making areas.”
At the time the common law cause of action for criminal conversation arose, divorce was virtually unknown, and the lack of defenses to the action reflected the then current attitude of society toward adultery and sexual misconduct, as well as the fact that married women had almost no legal rights. Since the passage of married women’s property acts in this country the cause of action is now equally available to husbands and wives, but the defenses to a cause of action for criminal conversation, unlike the defenses to other common law causes of action for intentional interference with the marital relationship, remain almost nonexistent. In essence, a common law cause of action for criminal conversation is established by proving sexual intercourse with a married person, and general damages are presumed without proof of actual damage. Once a single act of intercourse with a married person is proved, the only defense at common law is the consent of the aggrieved spouse. It is no defense to an action for criminal conversation that the defendant did not know the other person was married, nor that the married person misrepresented himself or herself to be unmarried.
As late as 1949, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania said: “A man who has sexual relations with a woman, not his wife, assumes the risk that she is married. Even her misrepresentation that she is single affords the offender no defense to liability for *475criminal conversation.” Antonelli v. Xenakis, 363 Pa. 375, 69 A. 2d 102.
Virtually all legal writers in the modern era agree that the common law cause of action for criminal conversation has afforded a fertile field for blackmail and extortion by means of manufactured suits, and that even genuine actions are more frequently than not brought with purely mercenary or vindictive motives, and that damages recovered are usually large and punitive. See, Prosser, Law of Torts (4th Ed.), § 124, at p. 887; Criminal Conversation: Civil Action for Adultery, 25 Baylor L. Rev., p. 495; The Case for Retention of Causes of Action for Intentional Interference with the Marital Relationship, 48 Notre Dame Lawyer, p. 426.
As a result of the injustice inherent in the traditional common law action and the consequent abuses, approximately a dozen states, have abolished the cause of action for criminal conversation by statute, and Pennsylvania has now abolished the cause of action by judicial decision. See Fadgen v. Lenkner, 469 Pa. 272, 365 A. 2d 147 (1976).
The more persuasive view, however, is that the marital relationship should be protected in those cases of serious and genuine wrong, and that the preferable method of accomplishing that result is by altering the rules governing the common law action for criminal conversation rather than by abolishing the cause of action entirely. See, Prosser, Law of Torts (4th Ed.), § 124, at p. 888; 48 Notre Dame Lawyer, at p. 433.
A cause of action for criminal conversation ought to be treated in the same fashion as the other common law causes of action for intentional interference with the marital relationship. An intention to interfere with a marital relationship should not be presumed where the defendant does not know, or have reason to know, that the other individual is married, or has been actively misled into believing *476the other individual was unmarried. Such facts should constitute a complete defense to an action for the intentional tort of criminal conversation.
The other major injustice perpetuated by continuing the traditional cause of action for criminal conversation is in the area of damages. At the time the cause of action for criminal conversation arose, great and substantial damage was presumed to result to any marital relationship without proof of specific damage, no matter what the kind and quality of the marriage may have been. Blackstone reported in 1768 that “damages recovered are usually very large and exemplary.” 2 Cooleys, Blackstone Commentaries, at p. 140. The fact that the husband and wife were separated, or that the marital relationship had been completely and permanently breached before the sexual misconduct occurred, was generally immaterial, not only on the issue of defenses but on the issue of damages.
In this century courts in this country have generally permitted the introduction of evidence of complete and permanent separation and evidence of the quality of the particular marital relationship, but have restricted the consideration of such evidence by the jury solely to the issue of damages. At the same time, most courts have held that after a complete and permanent breach of a marital relationship, as by separation, there can be no liability, and hence no damages, for enticement, harboring, or alienation of affections. See Prosser, Law of Torts (4th Ed.), § 124, at p. 878, footnote 15 and cases there cited. Meanwhile juries in criminal conversation cases continue to return very large verdicts reflecting exemplary and punitive awards. It should be the rule that when the conduct which forms the basis for an action for criminal conversation occurs after a permanent separation of the plaintiff and his or her spouse, and a decree of divorce follows, damages for criminal conversation, at most, should be *477restricted to nominal damages, in the absence of proof of special damages.
The case at bar is an obvious one for the application of these two rules. The plaintiff and her husband had both been married before. They lived together before this marriage, and there was evidence that both of them had been involved in extra-marital affairs. The marriage was a stormy one at best, and they actually lived together after the marriage for a period of a little more than 5 months. They permanently separated on July 21, 1976. Petition for dissolution of the marriage was filed on August 16, 1976, and the divorce decree was entered on March 1, 1977. There was substantial evidence that the relationship between the defendant and the plaintiff’s husband had its inception after the permanent separation of the plaintiff and her husband. The plaintiff’s husband was clearly the aggressor, and it is undisputed that he told the defendant his marriage was at an end and definitely over. The jury obviously accepted that version of the facts since it found in favor of the defendant on the cause of action for alienation of affections.
Under the instructions, which followed the old common law rules, the jury was nevertheless allowed to bring in a verdict for general damages of $10,000 with an almost complete lack of evidence in the record as to pain, suffering, injury to health, degradation, or humiliation suffered by the plaintiff. It should also be pointed out that in Nebraska punitive or exemplary damages are not ordinarily allowed.
In addition, the jury was permitted to consider extensive evidence as to the financial standing not only of the plaintiff and the defendant but of the plaintiff’s former husband, who was not even a party to the action. The defendant attempted to offer into evidence the decree of divorce. The offer was denied, although the court did allow the parties to *478stipulate that a divorce decree was entered on March 1, 1977.
The majority opinion in this case refuses to abrogate or modify the common law cause of action for criminal conversation upon the ground that “this court has consistently upheld a spouse’ right of recovery for criminal conversation.” The cause of action for criminal conversation was of judicial origin and the rules as to defenses and damages were and are court-made rules. An unjust or irrational principle or rule of law should not be allowed to persist on the hollow ground that changing an antiquated rule is a job for the Legislature. See 16 Kan. L. Rev. 265, at p. 273.
Section 49-101, R. R. S. 1943, provides: “So much of the common law of England as is applicable and not inconsistent with the Constitution of the United States, with the organic law of this state, or with any law passed or to be passed by the Legislature of this state, is adopted and declared to be law within the State of Nebraska.”
In State ex rel. Johnson v. Tautges, Rerat & Welch, 146 Neb. 439, 20 N. W. 2d 232, this court held: “The courts have the power to modify the common law, adopting such of its principles as are applicable and rejecting such others as are inapplicable. * * * No rule of the common law could survive the reason on which it was founded. It needed no statute to change it but abrogated itself.”
Citation of authority should not be required to establish that the common law cause of action for criminal conversation is of judicial or common law origin, and that this court has power to modify it in the absence of legislative action to the contrary. As this court said in Brown v. City of Omaha, 183 Neb. 430, 160 N. W. 2d 805, a case dealing with governmental immunity from common law tort liability: “Both the Legislature and this court have power to act to change the doctrine and it may well be that *479the Legislature will have the ultimate word. This would seem to be a poor reason to avoid the court’s obligation to modify the common law to serve the requirements of justice in a modem society. We ought not to thrust upon the Legislature the sole responsibility for injustice on the ground that, ‘Thus it was said in the reign of Henry IV,’ nor even on the ground that any change would constitute the traditionally condemned heresy of judicial legislation.”
The common law cause of action for criminal conversation, under its traditionally accepted rules, is an anachronism in the world of today. It should be modified to protect the sanctity of the genuine home and marital relationship, but its injustices should not be continued for the benefit of mercenary or vindictive spouses simply because our previous decisions have followed the traditional rules for a very long time. Justice should not be so readily sacrificed on the altar of stare decisis.
In the case now before us the verdict of the jury was punitive, and the punishment was directed at the wrong person. Under the suggested modifications of the common law cause of action for criminal conversation, and the circumstances of this case, the judgment should be modified by reducing it to a nominal amount.
White, C. Thomas, J., joins in this dissent.