Court Opinion

ID: 9849104
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 04:34:48.739186+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:19:01.119557
License: Public Domain

White, J.,
concurring in part, and in part dissenting.
While I agree with our holding in Creason v. Myers, 217 Neb. 551, 350 N.W.2d 526 (1984), reaffirming alienation of affections as a viable cause of action in this state, I do not agree that criminal conversation in its common-law form should be similarly retained.
In Kremer v. Black, 201 Neb. 467, 268 N.W.2d 582 (1978), a majority of this court held that common-law criminal *340conversation should be retained as a cause of action in this jurisdiction. In his dissent Justice McCown enumerated legal and policy reasons why criminal conversation, in its traditional common-law form, had outlived its usefulness. I agreed with Justice McCown’s reasoning then. However, I now believe the action should be abolished.
The action for criminal conversation is not only an anachronism in today’s world, it is manifestly unjust and irrational in the hands of mercenary and vindictive spouses.
Law is not a fixed science. Principles of law change with the passing of time, through the gradual change of thought on the part of society and social institutions. When the reasons behind a traditional principle of law have ceased to exist, then, in the richest tradition of the common-law system, the rule of law should be altered to reflect those changes.
Common-law criminal conversation is a cause of action of judicial making. As Justice Cardozo once said, “A rule which in its origin was the creation of the courts themselves, and was supposed in the making to express the mores of the day, may be abrogated by courts when the mores have so changed that perpetuation of the rule would do violence to the social conscience.” This court’s capacity for growth and change in the judicial development of the common law should reflect no less.