Wisconsin did as well, in 1971. We called it “breach of promise,” though.
Actually, the more interesting question is “tortious interference with prospective economic advantage,” one of my favorite causes of action.
To explain to the non-lawyers, you can have a legal claim against someone who, without sufficient justification, improperly interferes with a contract you have. For instance, if you have a distribution contract with a supplier, and a competitor who knows about the contract pays off the supplier to breach the contract, you would probably have a claim against the competitor.
Interference with prospective economic advantage is where someone interferes with a situation where there is not contract but an expectation of performace (such as a deal that is just about to go to contract or a supply relationship that is not in a formal contract but has continued for a long time.)
Anyway, I think that tortious interference continues to be proper because it is a claim for economic damages. The “heart balm” actions are only for emotional damages.
Sure a relationship breaking up sucks, and the emotional suffering is real, but there should not be legal recompense for these things, particularly when the actions usually require two people to be complicit in the activities complained of.
AHEM!
Look, I have NO intention of justifying a cheating spouse, but have we all forgotten she is suing her hubby - for divorce? That given the cause of action, in many states, she is likely to recover a significant fraction of his assets?
So, given that, I see nothing wrong with allowing her to take action against other contributing parties. Agreed, it won’t do much to make the “wronged party” (real-life relationships are often more complicated than this implies) feel better, but let it at least be an option. This may be one situation where a jury may actually be as close to justice as we can get
I’ve always been torn about the ‘no-fault’ divorce. I don’t incline towards stigmatizing people, and the former divorce laws (which in some states required that one party be morally ‘at fault’, and often encouraged abandoment and later bigamy) had serious flaws. But as I’ve watched so many of my friends finish off their starter marriages… I couldn’t help but feel a little sad that it’s come to this.
of course, the modern vision of romance was a poetic invention of 14th century troubadours (I know, some say 16th, but I’ll stand by my choice of century)