Husband sues wife’s lover and wins £6.7m
ADULTERY is a serious – and expensive – matter in the US state of North Carolina, as one man has discovered.
A court last week ordered Francisco Huizar to pay $8.8million (£6.7 million) to Keith King, whose wife he had been seeing for more than a year. Mr King, 48, a businessman, sued Mr Huizar for “alienation of affection” and “criminal conversation” based on centuries-old English common law that has been removed from most states’ books. A Superior Court judge in Durham awarded him $2.2million in compensatory damages and $6.6million in punitive damages.
Mr King married his wife, Danielle, now 33, in 2010. He said he discovered flirtatious text messages sent to Mr Huizar, who hails from San Antonio, Texas, on her phone five years later.
Most states have dropped the laws as archaic and for treating women as chattels, but they remain on the books in six states, including. North Carolina. A law firm in Raleigh said 200 claims were made in the state each year.
Successful cases must show that plaintiff and spouse were happily married until the “malicious conduct of defendant was a cause of the loss and alienation of such love and affection”.
“Criminal conversation” covers extramarital sexual acts – and was abolished in England and Wales in 1857.
Joanne Foil, Mr King’s lawyer, said the extramarital affair and an alleged assault by Mr Huizar cost Mr King’s company, BMX Stunt Shows, revenue and an employee, since Mrs King worked for the company.
Mr Huizar’s lawyer, Cheri Patrick said: “Verdicts like these ignore the realities of how and why marriages fail and remove personal responsibility for a person’s own marriage.”