What You Need to Know About Alienation of Affection in Mississippi
If you think you may be involved in an Alienation of Affection situation, you are not in a very happy place right now – a complicated romantic dynamic to say the least, whether you are going to be the plaintiff or the defendant. In modern times, while we have seen many large settlements and jury verdicts that have been protected by the Appellate Courts, the most common use of an Alienation of Affection case in Mississippi is to apply third party pressure in a divorce action.
At the core, Alienation of Affection is a lawsuit in which one party claims the defendant deprived them of the affection of their spouse. This almost always arises against a married person’s girlfriend or boyfriend – called a paramour in legal circles. These cases remain very popular in Mississippi. There may also be very limited circumstances where a business or organization could be held responsible for Alienation of Affection.
The elements of a case for Alienation of Affection in Mississippi are:
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Wrongful conduct by a third party;
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Loss of the spouse’s affection; and
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A causal connection between the conduct and the loss.
The interference must be active. While adultery is not necessarily an element of Alienation of Affection, the proof of adultery gives rise to a presumption of malice, which permits punitive damages. Damage calculations include such things as physical and emotional injuries, and the plaintiff may recover lost wages, medical bills, private investigator fees, attorney fees, counseling expenses and other calculable economic damages.
The attorneys of R+E are routinely involved in Mississippi Alienation of Affection cases. In fact, when people known nationally and internationally have connections to Mississippi and this old tort comes up, we usually get the phone call. Google us.
