A judge says a Texas man's affair with a North Carolina man's wife should cost him nearly $9 million.
The Herald-Sun of Durham reports that Superior Court Judge Orlando Hudson awarded Keith King $8.8 million in compensatory and punitive damages Thursday from Francisco Huizar III. King had sued Huizar for, among other complaints, criminal conversation and alienation of affection. North Carolina is one of six states where jilted spouses can sue affair partners. The others are Hawaii, Mississippi, New Mexico, South Dakota and Utah.
Other WRAL Top Stories
Attorney Joanne Foil says the affair and an alleged assault by Huizar cost King's company, BMX Stunt Shows, revenue and an employee, as his wife worked for the company. Huizar's attorney, Cheri Patrick, says the Kings' marriage was damaged before Huizar met the wife at a BMX show. Patrick says King was controlling and manipulative.
Huizar plans to appeal.
Healing broken hearts with the law
North Carolina's so-called broken-heart tort involves two components. One is alienation of affection, which accuses someone of breaking up a happy marriage. The other is criminal conversation, which involves sexual acts. The idea dates back hundreds of years to colonial North Carolina, when women were seen as property.
In March 2011, a Wake County judge gave the largest alienation of affection award in state history to Carol Puryear, the ex-wife of Donald Puryear, who owns a trucking company in Raleigh. Betty Devin, who later married Donald Puryear, was accused of maliciously breaking up the marriage and was ordered to pay $30 million.
Victims rarely collect their judgments.
Ditched spouses file about 200 lawsuits each year in North Carolina – 187 in 2012, 199 in 2011 and 205 in 2010. Many of the lawsuits are used as leverage in divorces and never make it in front of a judge.
Jere Royall, director of community impact and counsel with the North Carolina Family Policy Council, says he believes the Old English common law has modern meaning.
“State policy needs to help protect marriage,” he said. “Alienation of affection really offers the only practical legal consequence for third parties who commit wrongful and malicious acts that result in loss of love and affection in a marriage.”
State Rep. Darren Jackson, D-Wake, helped craft a compromise in 2009 that placed stricter rules on alienation of affection suits, stipulating that no one can be sued for actions taken after a couple has permanently and physically separated. A three-year statute of limitations was also placed on the law.
Jackson says he'd prefer the law be abolished all together.
“I had seen the toll it takes on families. It's an antiquated law,” he said. “It just creates more hard feelings and makes it impossible for the parties – the husband and wife who have separated – to move forward in individual lives and still focus on the well-being of their children.”