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Source: (consider it) Thread: Alienation of affection?
L'organist
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# 17338

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A story in the press at the moment has come to light because of a civil action being brought for, effectively, alienation of affection, albeit using issues to do with family life and the bringing up of children as a stalking horse.

Bearing in mind that women in the 21st century are assumed by most people in the western world to be autonomous, capable of thinking for themselves and responsible for their own actions, is there any place in the modern world for such an arcane concept as 'Alienation of affection'.

Even in the more conservative US, there are only 2 or 3 states where it is still on the statute book.

To quote an eminent US divorce attorney
quote:
Adultery is not uncommon, but an alienation-of-affection case just polarizes everyone and devastates everything in its path including the children and both spouses....The world has changed. Women are no longer viewed as property. Alienation-of-affection is something that dates way, way back, and if there was ever a law that needed to be removed, this is it.
Your thoughts?

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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet

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Enoch
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I haven't seen this story and can't guess which permutation it is about. Who is alienating whose affection? Parent and child? Seducer and seducee? Employer demanding that husband or wife put in long hours at the office rather than do their bit at home?

It used to be possible if someone seduced your wife and persuaded her to run off with him, to sue him for damages, but that wasn't for alienation of affection. It was for the financial cost of finding a cook and someone to look after the children. I don't think this has been the case for many years.

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deano
princess
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What is "alienation of affection"? I've never heard the phrase before.

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"The moral high ground is slowly being bombed to oblivion. " - Supermatelot

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Dave W.
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# 8765

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quote:
Originally posted by deano:
What is "alienation of affection"? I've never heard the phrase before.

Let me google that for you...
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deano
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quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.:
quote:
Originally posted by deano:
What is "alienation of affection"? I've never heard the phrase before.

Let me google that for you...
Or, or, bear me out on this, let's see if the idea flies, how about saying what the phrase means in the OP, then everyone would know and loads of shipmates wouldn't have to go to google. The result may be a richer, more rewarding thread for all.

Good idea?

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"The moral high ground is slowly being bombed to oblivion. " - Supermatelot

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seekingsister
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I read about this because a singer named Fantasia Barrino got sued over it in North Carolina for dating (and getting pregnant by) a man who was already married. The man's wife sued Fantasia on these grounds. Unfortunately for her home state NC is one of the few states that allows this type of suit.

So I don't recognize anything to do with a lower status for women in it, given the case above. But maybe you are referring to some other specific cases?

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Eliab
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# 9153

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quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
It used to be possible if someone seduced your wife and persuaded her to run off with him, to sue him for damages, but that wasn't for alienation of affection. It was for the financial cost of finding a cook and someone to look after the children. I don't think this has been the case for many years.

It changed in the sixties in E&W, but had been almost completely obsolete for some time before then. The cause of action was that of either "enticing" one spouse to leave the other, or of "harbouring" them once they had done so. It was different from a cause of action for adultery - it was possible to "entice" a spouse away for non-sexual reasons and fall foul of the law, or, indeed, to commit adultery with them but not to "entice" them away.

Damages could be awarded for the loss of the spouse's "society" and "services". The reported cases do frequently comment on the archaic and unsatisfactory nature of the law, and the difficulties in putting a financial value on a spouse (both morally, and practically - the fact that said spouse has left would itself tend to imply a rather low assessment of their 'worth'), a difficulty which was generally found easier to resolve when looking at the practical value of child care.

It had a 'reasonableness' defence. A person who gave refuge to a spouse who had been the victim of threats or violence could certainly plead that as a defence.

Adultery was also actionable as a separate legal wrong, but IIRC (unlike enticement) only available as a remedy for husbands against the seducers of their wives. It's also been abolished, and seeking damages for adultery was unfashionable long before the law changed. The one relic of the civil wrong of adultery that persists to the present day is that a person seeking divorce on those grounds can still seek the legal costs incurred in proving adultery from the co-respondent.

I was involved in a case about twelve years ago where a husband tried to use the Protection from Harassment Act (conceived as an anti-stalking law, but worded and applied rather more widely) to sue a person who had broken up his marriage by "enticing" his wife (the enticement was proved, adultery was not) and who had thereby caused him "alarm and distress". The Court found that Parliament having abolished "enticing and harbouring" in the sixties was not to be presumed to have intended to re-introduce such a cause of action in the absence of clear wording to the contrary.

It is, however, not impossible that the break-up of a marriage could be taken into account in assessing damages for, say, personal injury. If I assault you, and injure your brain causing you mood swings and depression, and as a result your marriage breaks up, then there's no reason in principle for the Court to disregard that. However what it is (conceptually) compensating you for is the damage to your mind and body, and the consequences of that injury, not the break-up of your marriage as such. Similarly, breaking up a marriage by defamation would be actionable - if you tell a wife that her husband's a paedophile, and she leaves him, he can sue you. Again, though, the cause of action is conceptually based on the damage to reputation, manifested in this particular instance as the loss of reputation with one's spouse. It is the means used to destroy the marriage that are wrong (and actionable). Ruining someone's relationship by means that are not themselves unlawful no longer invites any legal consequences.

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Leorning Cniht
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# 17564

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quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:

Bearing in mind that women in the 21st century are assumed by most people in the western world to be autonomous, capable of thinking for themselves and responsible for their own actions, is there any place in the modern world for such an arcane concept as 'Alienation of affection'.

There is nothing in the concept or statutes that should make you think that "alienation of affection" is a female-specific thing. There have been cases where wives have sued their husband's mistresses, and won, under these kinds of law.

ETA: Indeed, seekingsister points out one such above.

I think it's a bad thing. It's adultery by another name, whether or not there's actual sex involved, it's a sin, and it's the act of an utter cad (not sure there's a satisfactory word that means 'cad' and doesn't carry the implication that the cad is male, but there should be.)

But, just like adultery, I don't think it's a crime, and nor do I think it should be a tort. People aren't property.

[ 29. September 2014, 13:29: Message edited by: Leorning Cniht ]

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Dave W.
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# 8765

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quote:
Originally posted by deano:
quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.:
quote:
Originally posted by deano:
What is "alienation of affection"? I've never heard the phrase before.

Let me google that for you...
Or, or, bear me out on this, let's see if the idea flies, how about saying what the phrase means in the OP, then everyone would know and loads of shipmates wouldn't have to go to google. The result may be a richer, more rewarding thread for all.

Good idea?

That doesn't seem practical. How is L'organist supposed to know beforehand which words you understand and which ones you don't?
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Enoch
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# 14322

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It would be nice, though, to know what the story is that has prompted the OP.

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L'organist
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# 17338

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The Bishop of Arundel and Brighton (RC), Kieran Conry.

He has just resigned
quote:
I am sorry to confess that, going back some years, I have been unfaithful to my promises as a Catholic priest. I would like to reassure you that my actions were not illegal and did not involve minors.
KC used to be head of the Catholic Media Office and was the first person to respond when the subject of the RC church's 'boot camp' near Stroud came up.

I'm surprised that no one has picked up on the last bit (that his lapse does not involve minors) but amazed his affair(s) haven't been outed before now - his 'fondness for women' (in reality he was refreshingly normal) during his time at the Media Office was noted by many of the fourth estate which may be why this hasn't surfaced before now.


In the diocese KC upset a number of parishioners with his perceived traditionalist approach to clergy discipline so there is a certain amount of schedenfreude at the news of his resignation.

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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet

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Enoch
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# 14322

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quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
The Bishop of Arundel and Brighton (RC), Kieran Conry.

He has just resigned
quote:
I am sorry to confess that, going back some years, I have been unfaithful to my promises as a Catholic priest. I would like to reassure you that my actions were not illegal and did not involve minors.
KC used to be head of the Catholic Media Office and was the first person to respond when the subject of the RC church's 'boot camp' near Stroud came up.

I'm surprised that no one has picked up on the last bit (that his lapse does not involve minors) but amazed his affair(s) haven't been outed before now - his 'fondness for women' (in reality he was refreshingly normal) during his time at the Media Office was noted by many of the fourth estate which may be why this hasn't surfaced before now.


In the diocese KC upset a number of parishioners with his perceived traditionalist approach to clergy discipline so there is a certain amount of schedenfreude at the news of his resignation.

That's helpful, though a link to the story so that one did not have to try a few searches oneself would have been even more helpful. I, for one, had not picked up on this story. Although it seems to be recent and current, and I'm in the same country, I don't think it's been that widely reported.

I'd be surprised, and would regard it as deplorable, if a claim were to succeed against the RC Church in a jurisdiction where there is no prospect of a claim being successful against the alleged alienator. I don't see how it could possibly be just that person could have to pick up the tab for someone else who wasn't liable in the first place.


For those of us who do not have the inestimable benefit of being RCs, can you also please explain what "the RC church's 'boot camp' near Stroud" is about?

[ 30. September 2014, 14:01: Message edited by: Enoch ]

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Lyda*Rose

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# 4544

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quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
It would be nice, though, to know what the story is that has prompted the OP at all.

I agree. When I googled "alienation of affection", that story didn't come up. (Just a bunch of lurid stories from North Carolina of big windfalls for "victims" [Roll Eyes] .) I only now know what the subject of the OP really is.

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"Dear God, whose name I do not know - thank you for my life. I forgot how BIG... thank you. Thank you for my life." ~from Joe Vs the Volcano

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L'organist
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Enoch

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/gay-priest-reveals-secret-of-catholic-boot-camp-1247443.html

Is an accurate news story about Stroud.

Although originally founded in the US for the 'treatment' of paedophile priests, in the UK the majority of referrals have been for alcoholism or breaking the vow of celibacy.

<tangent>
The founder of the Order, Gerald Fitzgerald, was advising bishops in the US as long ago as the 1950s that in his opinion paedophile priests could not be cured and should therefore be laicised.

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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet

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Enoch
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Three queries:-

1. How do we know this report is accurate? This is only in the press. The source is anonymous, and was apparently only there for a week.

2. The story is 17 years old, and a bit of research reveals the place closed 10 years ago.

3. What has this closed boot camp got to do with the original question about they possibility of suing someone for alienating the affections of another?

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Barnabas62
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quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62 in Dead Horses (What "listening" process thread):
I've looked at the press stories carefully and what Bishop Kieran Conroy has said. Some of the press allegations (accompanied by photographs) fall into the category of potential Commandment 7 infringements when repeated here.

No further comments please on the press speculation about particular individuals, certainly not at this stage. You know we have a very cautious approach to Commandment 7, given out lack of any reserves with which to defend against accusations of libel.

Barnabas62
Dead Horses Host

This applies here as well. Please avoid speculation about Bishop Kieran Conroy for the time being.

Barnabas62
Purgatory Host

[ 30. September 2014, 19:43: Message edited by: Barnabas62 ]

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Moo

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I notice the place was run by the Servants of the Paraclete. They had (maybe still have) a place in New Mexico which was supposed to treat pedophile priests.

AIUI priests who were considered to be well on the way to 'being normal' were assigned to nearby churches. There have been lawsuits filed by people who were sexually abused by these 'recovered' men.

Moo

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Twilight

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There was a case in the American south some years ago wherein a woman sued her husband's secretary for alienation of affection and won. Naturally I don't remember any of the names but a short while later it made for a quite entertaining TV movie. [Hot and Hormonal]

It was interesting to see how the secretary (as testified to by most of the other office workers)seemed to set her cap for the boss and went from mousey frump to sexy vamp and started wearing very low cut tops, the better to leaning over the previously faithful boss's desk. See how old-fashioned all those words sound?

I agree that people aren't property and the man in question was an adult who should have resisted her advances, but the jury seemed to decide that without her interference the marriage would have lasted and so ex-wife and children had a good case.

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