Court Opinion

ID: 9735959
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 18:37:54.311356+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:27:03.069898
License: Public Domain

SACKETT, Judge
(specially concurring).
I concur with the majority.
The Iowa legislature has removed (1) adultery as a crime, and (2) fault from the dissolution statutes. The Iowa Supreme Court has determined alienation of affections is no longer a viable cause of action in Iowa. The result appears to be a trend for the courts not to be judgmental about the sex lives of consenting adults. We are bound to follow the legislative and supreme court dictates.
Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to plaintiff, the record reflects a married woman somewhat dissatisfied with her own marriage because she claims her husband found her unattractive and was inattentive. She is flattered by advances made by another man, who happens to be her dentist and who she first met in a professional capacity. The dentist and the wife have an affair over a period of three to four years. The wife admits having sex with the dentist an average of once a month, sometimes in her home, his office or a store room. Generally the wife and dentist meet in town but sometimes the wife drives long distances to be with the dentist.
While I cannot personally condone the actions of either Dr. Miller or the plaintiffs wife, that is not the issue. The Iowa courts have denied recovery when the consortium is lost because the spouse voluntarily abandons the marital relationship, with the encouragement of a third party. See Weitl v. Moes, 311 N.W.2d 259, 266 (Iowa 1981). Spousal love is not property which is subject to theft. Fundermann v. Mickelson, 304 N.W.2d 790, 794 (Iowa 1981). We do not abolish the action because defendants in such suits, need or deserve our protection. Id. We certainly do not do so because of any changing views of promiscuous sexual conduct. Id. It is merely and simply because the plaintiffs in such suits do not deserve to recover for the loss of or injury to “property” which they do not, and cannot, own. Id.
I will not say that the conduct of a male dentist who makes sexual overtures to a married female, who accepts or encourages the overtures and participates in the actions over an extended period, is atrocious and utterly intolerable conduct which goes beyond all bounds of decency that the court should allow the husband of the consenting woman to recover against the dentist. See Roalson v. Chaney, 334 N.W.2d 754, 756 (Iowa 1983).
In this case, the morals of society are more perfectly judged by a court having a final and eternal jurisdiction. Van Meter v. Van Meter, 328 N,W.2d 497, 499 (1983) (McCormick, J., dissenting).
DONIELSON and HAYDEN, JJ., join.