What’s The Best Way To Deal With A Cheating Fiancé? Sue Them!

Please do me a favor: the next time you’re at a dinner party and someone inevitably begins to rant and rave about how lawyers only make the world worst by increasing litigation and needless fighting, please tell that person that’s just what losers say.  Unless they bring up this story.  Then please, by all means apologize profusely to them on my behalf.

Now to be fair, this crazy lawsuit is not all the attorney’s fault.  Because like with any legal action, it takes two to tango, or more specifically in this case, it takes a scorned fiancé, a philanderer, the “other” woman, and of course, a slew of lawyers to cheer them all along the way to court house.

In case you’re lost on this story, the quick and dirty of it is that a soon-to-be-husband, Robert Leighton, went to Las Vegas with a few of his buddies for his bachelor party.  Leighton’s fiancé, Lauren Serafin, was aware of Leighton’s last hurrah and approved of it.  However, what Serafin didn’t approve of was Leighton hooking up with another woman on the trip.  We’ve all heard the rest of this story before.

You can probably imagine what happened next: Leighton had sexual relations with the other woman and hid it from his fiancé.  But, thanks to the miracle of modern technology, Serafin was able to discover Leighton’s unfaithfulness by snooping through his text messages where she was able to deduce that he had indeed cheated on her.  Upon confronting him, Leighton confessed his infidelity and subsequently broke off their engagement because he felt that he wasn’t ready to be married quite just yet.

End of story, right?  Not exactly.  Instead of walking away, Serafin decided to sue Leighton for Breach of Promise to Marry.

That’s a new one to me.  However, though Serafin’s cause of action may sound like a sexy agency dispute, it may very well be a plausible suit that she could actually win.

You see, the problem with many of these types of lawsuits isn’t always necessarily the law violated or the physical, emotional, or financial harm that occurred.  Rather it’s linking these two concepts together so as to form a sound basis for a lawsuit.  Though I’m incredibly unfamiliar with the type of tort Serafin is alleging, pulling up some quick case law in the area, it does seem like she may actually have a leg to stand on.

Essentially, Serafin is alleging that Leighton had a duty to her to stay faithful to her.  This duty first emerged when the two got engaged, at which Serafin then proceeded to plan their wedding together and expending her own money in anticipation for their union under the belief that Leighton would remain dedicated to her.

Serafin claims that she spent $62,814 in expenses and emotional anguish over the break up.  Putting aside the emotional distress for the moment, what you have here is a situation where Serafin can actually calculate concrete damages for Leighton’s breach, because that’s essentially the cause of action here.  The amount of money Serafin has spent on her wedding directly relates to her engagement, and therefore Leighton could be liable for paying back the money Serafin wasted.

More surprising is that this is actually a tort in the books.  Who knew that you could sue for this kind of stuff?  This really puts an odd spin on all those years watching Ross on “Friends” get divorced over and over again.

Anyway, from a legal view, Serafin does seem to have a bone to pick.  And certainly on a personal level, she has an even bigger one.  However, is this really the way that one should deal with a breach of trust like this?  I mean, sure I know I’d be angry if I was in Serafin’s position, but on simply a non-legal level isn’t Leighton admission that he wasn’t ready to get married a lot better way to resolve this whole mess instead of pushing through and getting a divorce later?  Sometimes lawsuits aren’t always the answer when one needs to correct a wrong.  Certainly I believe wrongs should be compensated for, but at the same time there are some wrongs that are better dealt with without legal intervention.

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