Court Opinion

ID: 9549018
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:12:06.052572+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:19:44.857791
License: Public Domain

STEWART, Justice
(concurring and dis-
senting):
I concur in Parts I and III of the majority opinion. However, I dissent from Part II for the reason that the majority fixes the limitations of the tort of alienation of affections more broadly than I think justifiable.
When defined broadly the tort of alienation of affections largely ignores the almost invariable contributing influences of both the plaintiff and the plaintiff’s estranged spouse in contributing to, if not creating in the first instance, a disharmonious relationship, which sometimes results in one or both of the unhappy spouses seeking other intimate relations with another person, however unjustifiable that may be. The delicate and often fragile bonds that unite a husband and wife can only flourish in an atmosphere of reciprocal tenderness. Yet marriage bonds are constantly subject to innumerable tensions and threatening forces that can never be measured juristi-cally in any realistic way. The power of such forces is demonstrated in the fact that some 40% of the marriages in this country end in divorce. And it is not often that full responsibility for the breakdown of a marriage can be attributed with any great degree of assurance to one or the other of the parties, let alone solely to the conduct of a third person.
We do not live in a day, if ever there were one, when male or female Casanovas cast a spell that all but nullifies the willpower of a member of the opposite sex. Persons who have been married do not generally fall prey to overwhelmingly seductive powers of another like some inert piece of iron drawn inexorably into the ever-stronger field of power of a magnet. The affection of married persons for each other is usually alienated by their own conduct or misconduct.
Nevertheless, the tort of alienation of affections may provide a proper remedy for certain conduct that interferes with the marital relationship. Sex is a powerful force. There are those in special positions of power, status, or authority who may illicitly use sex to satisfy their own passions or for otherwise improper ends. There are any number of such relationships, i.e., professors and students; physicians and patients; psychiatrists, psychoanalysts, or psychologists and clients; and employers and employees. Those who use positions of power or authority for the purpose of obtaining sexual favors and produce an alienation of affections between the one in an inferior position and his or her spouse, abuse and overreach any legitimate power they may have. In such cases, the consequence may be not only the breakup of one or perhaps two marriages, but also unforeseeable consequences in the future lives of the children from such marriages.
In other cases, where there is no abuse of power or authority, I think the tort of alienation of affections will cause much more harm than any good it may do. The judicial invitation to often vindictive persons, who usually have not perceived the mote in their own eyes, to use the courts to lash back at paramours of their spouses, sometimes simply as a means of blackmail, will provide little protection to the marriage relationship, and never be a force for reestablishing that relationship. The ugliness of the inevitable disputes over fault in divorce cases will only be magnified in most alienation of affection cases and will not be offset by any countervailing good. I see little reason to promote such unseemly disputes when so little is likely to be gained, except in those types of cases where one person abuses his or her power or authority.