A lawsuit for your broken heart

SPEAKER_04: This message comes from NPR sponsor Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Dana-Farber scientists laid the foundation for CDK4-6 inhibitors, new drugs that are increasing the survival rate for many advanced breast cancers. Learn more at danafarber.org slash everywhere. This is Planet Money from NPR. You can think of SPEAKER_08: what Keith King does as like breakdancing but on a bike. I mean one of SPEAKER_03: my all-time favorites was always a trick known as the double decade and that's where you the bicycle goes up on the back wheel and you go around the top of the bike twice before you set the bike back down. Whoa, Keith is a BMX rider. He SPEAKER_07: started doing it in the 80s. I was with the sport when it would be considered SPEAKER_03: underground or in its infancy. As the sport grew I was right there. And he SPEAKER_07: doesn't just ride he runs a BMX stunt company out of North Carolina. They perform everywhere. Halftime at NBA games, the Alaska State Fair. And one day SPEAKER_08: about 15 years ago while he's trying to line up a gig he meets Danielle. And just a couple months later he's like I need to marry her and he didn't just drop to a knee he took her on a helicopter ride. So what I did is I took all my trucks SPEAKER_03: and trailers and I painted on the top of the trailers I had five of them I put Danielle will you marry me and then I invited her family and I had my mom and dad there. This is so complicated. They get married and his wife starts working SPEAKER_07: with him at his BMX stunt company. I handled the logistics and the moving SPEAKER_03: parts of everything need to be everywhere and she helped sell the show and promote the show. I felt like we were kind of like a power couple. They had a SPEAKER_08: little girl lived in a nice house went to church together and his wife was one of those people that's always posting on Facebook like oh look at my amazing life. And the BMX business was growing. Keith says things were great. At what point does it seem like things start not being so great? I guess it would be whenever SPEAKER_03: she crossed paths with him. With him. This show is not about BMX it's about SPEAKER_07: infidelity. The him was the other man. I came across these messages and I SPEAKER_03: remember I jumped to my feet I'm like who are you talking to like this you're my wife. What kind of messages were they? Oh you know I like how tall you were SPEAKER_03: what do you look like in a bikini? It was very flirtatious and I was like who is this person? And so I called him from her phone and this is all I said to him because I was mad and you can bleep it out I said don't you ever call my wife again. And that was it. I thought it was done like I thought it was like a near miss. Um it was not done it progressed his wife had an affair with this guy and SPEAKER_08: Keith and his wife's marriage fell apart. And look this kind of thing it happens all the time but when it happened to Keith King he was devastated and he couldn't get it out of his mind that if it weren't for this guy if he hadn't been around he hadn't so actively pursued his wife he Keith and his wife would still be happily married. Then one day Keith is scrolling on Facebook and SPEAKER_07: he's seeing updates from an old high school friend it seems like she is also going through some stuff so Keith reaches out to her and he finds out that her spouse also cheated. And she's like yeah I'm suing the person that my SPEAKER_03: husband cheated with I'm suing him I'm like what? And she's like yeah I'm you know I'm suing him for alienation of affection and um that's what I'm doing and I was just like what in the world are you talking about? SPEAKER_08: Yeah what is she talking about? Hello and welcome to Planet Money I'm Erica Perez. I'm Sarah Gonzalez and this show is about messy relationships and what SPEAKER_07: happens when they meet a very old type of lawsuit. There are a lot of examples SPEAKER_08: in life where if someone harms you you have the option to sue them but you can't sue someone for breaking your heart right? Except in some states you SPEAKER_07: kind of can you can actually sue someone like like the him or or the her for meddling in your marriage. Today on the show what are these lawsuits where SPEAKER_08: do they come from and what happens when Keith files one of them to deal with the most important economic entanglements of his life his marriage. SPEAKER_04: you support for this podcast and the following message come from dignity memorial in life you plan for many important things like weddings retirement and your children's education a celebration of life is really no different planning and paying for your celebration of life in advance protects your loved ones and gives you the peace of mind you deserve it's truly one of the best gifts you can give your family dignity memorial will help you take care of every detail with professionalism and compassion for additional information visit dignity memorial calm this message comes from NPR sponsor Capella University sometimes it takes a different approach to unlock your true potential Capella University's game-changing flex path learning format is designed to help you learn relevant skills at your own pace so you can earn your degree on your terms and apply what you learn right away imagine your future differently at Capella dot edu pretty soon after Keith talked to that SPEAKER_08: old friend and learned about the option to sue he went for it he sued the man his wife had had an affair with blaming him for breaking up his marriage this SPEAKER_07: kind of lawsuit is called a heart balm tort and you maybe know what a tort is it's when someone is injured and they sue for damages typically cash think the lawsuit over McDonald's hot coffee that's a tort right a heart bomb tort is like that but for love heart bound h e a r t b a l m like think about like SPEAKER_06: chapstick or something bomb it's supposed to be like it's healing a broken heart yeah like a balm for your heart this is Jill has day a law SPEAKER_07: professor at the University of Minnesota and she is kind of like a heart balm expert she wrote about them in this book called intimate lies and the law heart bomb torts despite their name despite this image of it being used to SPEAKER_08: heal a broken heart they actually look at marriage in this very unromantic way they look at it in an economic way marriage is for most people the most SPEAKER_06: important economic decision of their lives in general if you don't have a prenup earnings during the marriage or marital property with an assumption of a 50-50 split at divorce so it's a tremendous economic interweaving people often own homes which is their most people's biggest asset they often own those together I mean it just it is an economic relationship in addition to everything else if you go back back back in time the economic part of marriage SPEAKER_08: was even more pronounced heart bomb towards date back to the 1600s to SPEAKER_07: English common law then they were imported to the US and by the early 1900s this is how heart bomb torts were often used say a woman was engaged to a man but he deceived her somehow like maybe he was already married to a woman in a neighboring town the deceived woman could be like oh no no no you are not gonna get away with that and she'd sue the would-have-been husband claiming a breach of promise like essentially a broken contract that is the heart bomb tort you have to keep in mind that the social and economic pressure to get SPEAKER_06: married especially for women is almost overwhelming what I like about heart bound torts is they're recognizing the world women are actually in right the SPEAKER_08: world they were in back then that someone who promises to marry you and SPEAKER_06: then doesn't do especially if they never meant it in the first place has inflicted an enormous injury sometimes a life-altering injury where that woman will never have the life she could have had if that man had just left her alone it recognizes women's economic desperation yeah back then if a woman SPEAKER_08: was engaged and then the engagement fell through that could affect a reputation she might never get married and for most women marriage was the main way for them to find economic security yeah so these heart bomb lawsuits were a form of SPEAKER_07: protection like some real back-in-the-day kind of stuff right so SPEAKER_06: how is it antiquated I think there's more than one way so one way it's antiquated is it's very much like women are perceived in in a property framework SPEAKER_06: where they're being transferred from father to husband that kind of heart SPEAKER_08: bomb suit where a man would get sued for leaving a woman before they got to the altar it wasn't the only kind some of the other heart bomb suits got steamy there's one that lets people sue for seduction like if you were seduced you could say how dare you seduce me everyone's gonna judge me now and you owe me for that and then there's one called criminal conversation the joke SPEAKER_06: about criminal conversation is that it's not criminal and it's not conversation that's how you can remember it's good it's not criminal it's not conversation SPEAKER_08: it's it's sex that's what it is just sex essentially you had sex with my wife who's off in the husband suing and then finally there is the heart bomb tort SPEAKER_07: called alienation of affection that is when you can sue someone who interferes in your marriage a so-called marital interloper by the 1920s heart bomb SPEAKER_08: lawsuits are getting tons of attention it's a time when there's all these big changes happening like there's women's suffrage more women are getting jobs great time and marriage changes too it starts looking more like how it does now and people are talking about this idea called companionate marriage right right SPEAKER_07: like you're choosing to be companions now right because like you have the same interest or whatever we get married for these days SPEAKER_08: yep exactly but then whenever there was a big heart bomb tort the tabloids loved it there were big splashy headlines like congressman Herrick sued for heart bomb and Winstead girl sues for $10,000 heart bomb the famous silent film star SPEAKER_07: Clara Bow had to pay 30,000 smackers that's what you called them after she went on a date with a married man scandalous and of course people loved SPEAKER_08: reading and talking about these stories people love mess right they love drama SPEAKER_07: they love it but then there was a backlash some people didn't like that women were filing heart bomb suits in those newspaper stories you start to see the stereotype of the unscrupulous woman going after the innocent man the women are called gold diggers yep this is when the term gold digger really takes off SPEAKER_08: while and that's one of the arguments states used to start outlawing heart the first state is Indiana in 1935 why Indiana Roberta West Nicholson Roberta West Nicholson was the state's only female legislator and she said things like no self-respecting woman would start a proceeding of the sort and we suspect and rightly that the affliction is not so much an aching heart as an itching palm whoo mm-hmm there's a wave of states and then there's I think what SPEAKER_06: they sometimes call like a long tail getting rid and getting rid until you just don't see these cases except in North Carolina which has her first alienation of affections case law yes North Carolina where Keith King lives all SPEAKER_08: these years later in North Carolina there are still like 200 heart bomb lawsuits filed every year and most of them are alienation of affection suits you alienated my spouse so I'm gonna sue the lover you can even sue a meddling mother-in-law watch out mother-in-laws okay it's not just North Carolina that SPEAKER_07: still allows heart bomb lawsuits a few states allow it but North Carolina is SPEAKER_07: the only place where heart bombs get filed like all the time why North SPEAKER_06: Carolina my hypothesis is the reason is there's some lawyers who know how to do these cases I'm not saying it's the only reason but having lawyers who are interested in bringing it is an important reason yeah lawyers of course SPEAKER_08: they want lawsuits yeah now there have been attempts in North Carolina to get rid of heart bomb torts and last year the Speaker of the House was sued by an assistant school principal because the Speaker of the House allegedly slept with the principal's wife after that speaker question why that law was even still on the books right of course you did it is a you know decent question SPEAKER_07: like should states really be judging some random third party like the him or or the her the marital interloper because think about it in divorce cases for example which are totally different from heart bomb cases you don't have to prove that someone did something quote-unquote bad in order to get divorced we have no fault divorces in every state now yeah and after reading SPEAKER_08: over dozens of present-day North Carolina alienation of affection cases it seems like the way they're used is less about pulling the one economic lever available to you it feels like they're more about people trying to get emotional validation but doing it in this very messy public way that shames all the parties involved I guess I'm personally of two minds about alienation SPEAKER_06: of affections on the one hand I think they're there can be wrongful conduct that does cause serious emotional injury I think the law generally recognizes too little emotional injury rather than too much so that's to be said in favor of alienation of affections but on the other hand it can be denying the agency of their spouse that it can seem misdirected right like SPEAKER_07: according to these lawsuits the wife or the husband whoever allowed the meddler in is just like an innocent bystander not someone who made a choice to cheat for whatever reason they might have had after the break how Keith King's case actually plays out in court this message SPEAKER_04: comes from NPR sponsor Dana Farber Cancer Institute where hundreds of researchers and clinicians make new discoveries inspired by the work of previous Dana Farber scientists see why nothing is as effective against cancer as a relentless succession of 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episodes and sponsor free listening just go to plus dot NPR dot org SPEAKER_08: after Keith King learned about heart bombs he hired a mother-daughter legal team and filed a lawsuit against the man his wife had had an affair with what did you think was gonna happen when he filed a suit I thought that he would just go SPEAKER_03: away at that point my attorneys I mean I remember them telling me like you know we think it will probably be settled out of court and so I was like well if I get anything out of it at least I'll get like attorney fees paid or something like that it did not settle out of court and Keith took the lawsuit pretty SPEAKER_07: seriously I wore suit and tie and everything to court every day and I was SPEAKER_03: like all these attorneys have these little pull file carts you know I'm telling they have their little file carts on wheels so I got me a file card on wheels I put all my binders in it Keith was ready his binders were full of SPEAKER_08: proof he says evidence because Keith there really is lawyers weirdly had to prove that Keith and his ex-wife had a happy loving marriage so he showed things like the two of them volunteered together they were intimate he pointed to Facebook posts where his ex-wife talked about how she had the best husband ever and the man he was suing he was in the courtroom also he's dressed SPEAKER_03: like he's going to a nightclub wearing Vans shoes in court but I'm sitting here thinking like I'm the BMX guy should be the one in here with Vans shoes SPEAKER_07: alright Keith also had to show proof that his wife and the other man had been intimate in the state of North Carolina and it's all noted in the court record hotels call logs printouts of text messages one of the things that you have SPEAKER_03: to prove is that the marriage is in good standing and this person did something malicious to destroy your marriage and one of our big bullets was is we had all these text messages and she was going back and forth with the girlfriends and she's like if it wasn't for him me and Keith would be fine everyone takes the SPEAKER_08: stand Keith the other man the ex-wife friends of theirs testify a psychologist who had diagnosed Keith with post-traumatic stress disorder was there and the other big thing there had to be proof of economic distress Keith and his wife had run a company together they both earned a living off of the business so Keith's lawyers brought in a forensic economist who assessed and forecast what it would cost to replace his wife in the business and also looked at what it would cost to replace her quote household services things like food preparation and laundry this is kind of unusual right like Keith's SPEAKER_07: lawyers are trying to get money from some other guy based on the unpaid labor of the ex-wife I never said ever to my attorney I want this much money I want SPEAKER_03: this much that much but it wasn't until my attorney addressed the judge like this is what we think the damages are I didn't realize that dollar amount Keith SPEAKER_08: may not have had a number but his lawyer sure did they stand up in court and share their math with the judge what the dissolution of the marriage will long-term cost Keith's business medical costs the cost of long-term weekly therapy for the PTSD the other man caused compensatory damages so I'm SPEAKER_03: sitting there like trying to add this all up in my head I'm like holy crap um I had no clue and the judge just looked up and he goes you know what I agree your damages I was like oh my gosh the damages eight point eight million SPEAKER_07: dollars that is how much this guy would have to pay Keith the judge writes this SPEAKER_08: long decision summing up his view of the case he finds that the couple had genuine love affection and companionship in their marriage and that the other man exhibited behavior that was reprehensible in both conduct and motive because the other man did things like rented a place nearby when Keith and his family were on a family trip he called the wife non-stop stayed at their home while their daughter was there but Keith was out of town and with his decision SPEAKER_07: the judge essentially put a price on the dissolution of Keith's marriage including Keith's quote shame and humiliation and loss of love so do you have eight point eight million dollars now no I don't um have you gotten any money from I got SPEAKER_07: anything right yeah because it is one thing to be awarded eight point eight SPEAKER_07: million dollars and another thing to collect it the other man actually filed for bankruptcy after the lawsuit now that doesn't make his debt go away but unless he gets a bunch of money one day Keith has nothing to collect on and we SPEAKER_08: reached out to the man Keith sued and Keith's ex-wife they're married now but they didn't want to talk meanwhile Keith is in debt to the lawyers who SPEAKER_07: represented him he owes them tens of thousands of dollars and there is no guarantee that the man he sued will ever pay him anything so Keith got his SPEAKER_08: heart broken and his family split apart he fought against it in all the ways he knew how and then he tried to apply an old remedy to his present-day situation he wanted relief a bomb for his broken marriage you went through all of this it does not sound like it was easy it sounds like it was actually probably very emotionally difficult do you think it was worth it I say yeah at that time SPEAKER_03: in my life the most precious thing to me was my family and I feel like he's a thief and he took that from me call it revenge or you can call it whatever you want to I don't think he will ever in his lifetime forget that he took what he took from me so yeah it's worth it to me heart bomb suits came about when SPEAKER_08: marriage was a largely economic institution they were a way of compensating for emotional and economic harm but what Keith really really wanted was for his family to get back together he wanted things to be the way they were before and that is something the law just can't make happen coming up on planet money it's like true crime without the murder Becca Platsky hosts the podcast corporate gossip with her brother they tell business stories but with the tone of a reality TV show I would love a SPEAKER_05: world in which we can go from talking about who was cast on Real House of New York in one breath and then in the next breath talk about regulatory capture and the impacts of deregulation on airports and you know so that's kind of my dream SPEAKER_08: the planet money team hands out Valentine's to the things we love most right now that's next week on the show this episode was produced by Emma SPEAKER_07: Beasley and edited by Molly Messick Sierra Juarez fact-checked the episode and it was engineered by Gilly Moon Alex Goldmark is our executive producer I'm Sarah Gonzalez I'm Erica Barris this is NPR thanks for listening SPEAKER_00: this message comes from NPR sponsor 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