It’s usually the “F” word-“Friends”-that enrages jilted lovers.
As in “Let’s just be . . .” or “I hope we can be . . .”
Those phrases once produced tears, temper tantrums and more than a few angry phone calls. Maybe even a threat or two.
But now the stakes apparently are getting higher after a federal jury in Chicago last week awarded a woman $178,000 because her fiance ended their 7-week engagement.
The stunning decision, and the suit itself, have more than a few legal experts and romantics scratching their heads.
“I think it’s a pretty sad state of affairs, pretty pathetic,” said Paige Greytok, president of Selective Search Inc., an executive matchmaking service in Chicago. “While I can understand emotional duress, are you going to be able to sue your parents if you don’t like your Christmas present?
More Top Picks Best Leg Press Machines
“Dating and love and engagement should be fun, a time when you can find out about another person,” she said, “. . . until they say, `Hey, you didn’t kiss me tonight. That’s going to cost you $3,000.’ “
Jurors found that wealthy Oregon rancher Richard Austin Springs III, 50, violated the Illinois Breach of Promise Act last year when he sent a postcard abruptly breaking off marriage plans with attorney Sharon Wildey, also 50, of Chicago. The jury awarded Wildey $93,000 in damages for pain and suffering, $60,000 for the loss of income from her law practice and $25,000 for psychiatric counseling expenses.
In his postcard, Springs expressed the hope that he and Wildey could remain, yes, friends. He also said that she could keep the engagement ring, bought for $19,000, and $10,000 in a Chicago bank account.
For the record, Wildey has put her diamond-and-sapphire ring up for sale at a Loop jewelry store.
So will cold cash and the courts confound the course of true love?
“If you promise somebody something, you could wind up giving them money,” said Dan Reid, a Hammond resident who has been engaged for two weeks and is planning to get married next year. “You’ve got to watch yourself. There’s lots of ways for people to try and get money.”
And, of course, lots of ways to stop them.
First there were prenuptial agreements, which asked brides and grooms to contemplate the nasty financial details of divorce before they even got married.
Might this case push things even further, into the realm of pre-engagement agreements? If so, can pre-going-steady agreements or a statute of limitations on love be far off?
Many of those who ride matrimonial coattails, or litigate them, called the suit and award ridiculous. It’s no fun getting dumped, they said, but it’s also a lame reason to sue.
Still, few people seem to believe the decision is likely to change the face of courtship, love or marriage. In the end, it might not even change legal standards if it is reversed or reduced on appeal.
Kitty Wall, manager of Fred Fox Studios in Clarendon Hills, which takes a lot of wedding photos, said that it’s not uncommon for ceremonies to be called off. Sometimes a sniffling bride calls to cancel arrangements, she said, but rarely does it go much further.
“I mean it’s horrible, but when you’re young, you get your heart broken all the time,” Wall said.
Many people thought the couple took marriage too lightly; Wildey and Springs were engaged within two months of their first meeting. At best, most people said, Springs should have paid for any wedding bills the couple already had run up.
“I’m the type of person who if they broke it off would even pay 50 percent of the costs because I was stupid enough to want to marry him and he was a jerk,” said Barbara Andersen, who is to be the matron of honor at her sister’s upcoming wedding.
Andersen, who has been married three years, was perusing floral books Wednesday at a shop in Oak Lawn with her bride-to-be sister, Lori Fleming. She compared an engagement to trying on a pair of shoes.
“It’s not a contract like a lease for a car,” interjected Fleming.
And both women said they would prefer to find out that their fiance didn’t want to get married before the wedding rather than after.
Some people thought Wildey was looking for somebody to blame, especially since she has already been divorced three times.
“If you’re at the point where you’re suing, I do think you’ve lost perspective on the situation,” said Deborah Stonich, whose fiance broke their engagement last year, though she says she was the one who was unwilling to make a marital commitment. “If a person is affecting you that much, I question how much sense of self you could have.”
But Stonich, a La Grange Park resident and environmental attorney who, incidentally, did not sue her former fiance, also said last week’s verdict is more likely an aberration than the beginning of a trend.
It is unclear if the jury’s finding will have far-reaching legal implications. Springs’ attorney said he has not decided whether to appeal, and, aside from a terse statement issued through Wildey’s lawyer, neither party has commented publicly.
The case was heard in federal court because the parties live in different states.
Dating to early this century, state breach of promise laws allowed a scorned lover to sue a former fiance for actual expenses as well as for embarrassment, humiliation and loss of other marriage opportunities.
But by the Depression, the suits were regarded as “legally sanctioned blackmail,” according to a 1990 article in Yale University’s Journal of Law, Economics and Organization.
In 1947, the Illinois General Assembly enacted a more restrictive Breach of Promise Act and limited damages to actual damages-such as the cost of a wedding dress, the deposit on a reception hall or perhaps the expense of moving in with a fiance.
“Since then there haven’t been very many breach of promise suits,” said Warren Heindl, a professor of family law at Chicago-Kent College of Law for 45 years. “Ordinarily, it’s not worth it.”
More Top Picks Ratings
Why the jury apparently disregarded the provisions of the revised statute is open to speculation. Certainly that could figure into appeals.
There have been similar cases to Wildey’s, but nothing quite as lucrative.
Last year, attorney Frank Zaffere III sued his former fiancee for $43,239.95, the amount he spent courting her for 10 months. Zaffere sought to recover expenses for a fur coat, a car, an engagement ring, a typewriter and even a Patsy Cline cassette and the champagne the onetime couple shared in the Pump Room.
But Zaffere dropped his lawsuit, saying he wanted to let his ex-fiancee “get on with her life.”
Earlier this year, a 39-year-old machinist from Chicago filed for divorce from his wife and in a separate action sued her alleged lover under the state’s alienation of affection law. The man’s attorney, Peter Regulski, said he is trying to negotiate an out-of-court settlement.
Several local family law attorneys said last week’s case was big news around their firms.
“Everybody was so taken aback by the recovery. We wondered if this is a burgeoning area for our practice,” said Bernard Rinella, of Rinella & Rinella in Chicago. “I would say no.”
Rinella said that he has had clients in the past who whined about broken promises, “but I’ve always told them to just forget about it.”
That still may be the best advice because Rinella and others said they would not be surprised if the award is reduced on appeal. A few attorneys credit the decision to a skillful performance by Wildey’s lawyer and to what may have been a softhearted jury.
“I suspect it was the spurned-lover routine,” Rinella said. “In this day of child abuse and sex abuse, maybe it’s a pleasant diversion for them when they can attach a financial award to someone they think got the short end of the stick.”