“He came to my house and ate dinner with us…”
A man has sued another man for cheating with his wife – and won.
Kevin Howard took legal action against the man who his wife had cheated on him with on the grounds that the man had directly caused the destruction of his marriage.
The North Carolina man filed the suit under a nineteenth century law that allows people to take legal action over “alienation of affection.”
He was awarded $750,000 (over €800,000) in damages this week.
Local news station WITN reports that Howard said he didn’t file the suit for the money, but because he wanted to prove a point.
“I feel that it’s very important that people understand that the sanctity of marriage is important especially in this day and age when people question everyone’s morals,” he said.
“And the state backed me up on it.”
Howard told the court that the man in question – a former friend – had spent a lot of time with him and his wife in the lead up the end of their relationship.
He said that his wife had originally told him she wanted a divorce because “I work too much, wasn’t around to be there.”
It later transpired that she had been cheating on him with his friend.
“He came to my house and ate dinner with us,” he said. “We shared stories. We talked about [our] personal lives.”
“It’s just like a personal injury case. If someone has a wreck and hurt you very badly, you get damages for that. Marital courts are the same premise. You get damages if someone injures your marriage.”
Howard’s attorney Cindy Mills told the station that when the man was first filed the suit, he laughed.
“The same person who laughed in that deposition, that defendant now has a $750,000 judgment against [him], so I don’t think he’s laughing now,” she said.
It remains unclear as to whether Howard will ever see any of his awarded damages.
Feature image via WITN.
