Adkins Law, PLLC. A law firm located in Huntersville, North Carolina.
Introduction: What Are Heart-Balm Torts?
For centuries, the law has attempted to regulate the most private sphere of human life: love, intimacy, and marriage. In both England and the United States, a class of civil causes of action emerged that came to be known as the heart-balm torts — legal remedies intended to soothe the “wounded heart” of a jilted fiancé or betrayed spouse. These actions allowed plaintiffs to recover damages for adultery, seduction, broken engagements, or malicious interference with marriage.
The most famous of these were:
- Criminal Conversation (CC): a strict liability action for adultery.
- Alienation of Affections (AoA): an action against a third party for maliciously destroying marital love.
- Breach of Promise to Marry: a suit against a fiancé who reneged on an engagement.
- Seduction: originally brought by parents for the “loss of services” of a daughter; later by women themselves against men who deceived them into sex.
These torts reflected older, patriarchal notions of marriage as a proprietary interest, but they also embodied society’s effort to protect the institution of marriage and to provide compensation for emotional and social harms. By the early 20th century, however, they came under withering attack as archaic, sexist, and ripe for abuse. Nearly every state abolished them, often in dramatic fashion during the “heart-balm abolition movement” of the 1930s.
Today, North Carolina stands as the most prominent outlier, retaining both criminal conversation and alienation of affections. To understand how North Carolina became the last great battleground of the heart-balm torts, we must trace their full history from England through the United States.
English Common Law Origins
The heart-balm torts were born in England, steeped in the property-centered view of marriage. During the early modern period the law treated marriage less as a personal partnership and more as a property arrangement. Husbands were considered to have a proprietary interest in their wives’ services, sexuality, and fidelity. When that interest was violated — whether by a seducer, a paramour, or a promise-breaker — the law allowed civil remedies to provide a kind of monetary salve, or “balm,” for the husband’s wounded honor.
Criminal Conversation
“Crim. con.” actions emerged in the 17th and 18th centuries as suits by husbands against their wives’ lovers. The injury was conceptualized not as a personal affront but as a violation of the husband’s proprietary right to his wife’s services and sexual exclusivity. Wives had no reciprocal right to sue.
Trials became public spectacles. Famous cases, such as those involving members of Parliament or aristocrats, filled the newspapers with lurid details of adulterous liaisons. Damages were often massive and served a punitive function.
The system, however, was harsh and one-sided. A wife was treated as her husband’s property; she could not sue if her husband strayed. By the mid-19th century, critics called the action archaic and vindictive. Parliament abolished criminal conversation with the Matrimonial Causes Act of 1857, which transferred marital disputes into the divorce courts.
Alienation of Affections
The enticement action, another English innovation, allowed husbands to sue those who persuaded or harbored their wives away. Again, the theory was loss of services and consortium. Over time, courts began to emphasize the loss of love and companionship. By the late 19th century, some jurisdictions extended the right to wives, recognizing that husbands could also be enticed away.
Breach of Promise to Marry
In an age when marriage was central to social and economic security, courts allowed suits by jilted fiancées. If a man promised to marry and then withdrew, the woman could sue for damages to her reputation, economic expectations, and emotional well-being. These suits were common in Victorian England and often resulted in significant verdicts.
Seduction
At common law, fathers could sue for the seduction of their daughters, framed as a claim for the “loss of services” of the household. In reality, these cases were about sexual dishonor and family shame. Over time, the law shifted to allow women themselves to sue, particularly when seduction was achieved by deception or false promises of marriage.
By the 20th century, however, England had abolished virtually all of these actions. Breach of promise to marry was eliminated by the Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act of 1970. Heart-balm suits, once staples of English common law, became historical curiosities.
Transplant to the United States
The American colonies inherited the heart-balm torts from England, and they flourished in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Criminal Conversation in America
Adultery was viewed not only as a moral wrong but also as an economic and social injury. Criminal conversation provided an avenue for husbands to vindicate their rights and punish interlopers. Unlike England, some American states eventually allowed wives to sue as well, reflecting gradual shifts toward gender equality.
Alienation of Affections
AoA became one of the most common heart-balm actions in the U.S. Plaintiffs — husbands and later wives — alleged that malicious third parties caused the loss of marital love. The tort captured not only lovers but also meddling in-laws, neighbors, and even clergy.
Breach of Promise to Marry
These cases were especially popular in the 19th century. Women sued former fiancés for abandoning engagements, often arguing that their reputation was ruined and their prospects diminished. Large verdicts were reported in newspapers, fueling public fascination.
Seduction
American law expanded seduction suits to empower women. Many states enacted statutes allowing unmarried women to sue directly. Juries often awarded damages for shame, loss of virtue, and impaired prospects of marriage.
Together, these actions reflected the social fabric of the 19th century, where marriage was seen as both a moral institution and an economic arrangement.
The Golden Age and Scandals
By the late 19th and early 20th centuries, heart-balm suits were at their peak in both volume and visibility.
- Filings: Court dockets in states like New York, Illinois, and Massachusetts show that breach of promise, seduction, and alienation of affections suits were commonplace filings. In Chicago in the 1910s, several dozen breach of promise cases were filed each year, enough that newspapers joked the “jilted fiancée calendar” was as regular as the seasons. In rural courts, seduction and alienation suits were routine tools for families to seek compensation after an affair became public.
- Verdicts and Damages: Juries often handed out substantial awards. A $5,000–$10,000 verdict in the 1890s equaled several years’ wages for the average worker. High-profile cases hit $50,000 or more — fortunes that grabbed headlines. By the 1920s, plaintiffs openly sought six-figure sums, something almost unheard of in other tort litigation of the period.
- Publicity: These suits were also a media sensation. Newspapers knew that “love on trial” sold papers. Breach of promise cases filled front pages with transcripts of romantic letters, photographs of lovers, and speculation about secret trysts. Seduction and criminal conversation trials were reported like theater, with descriptions of fainting plaintiffs, scandalized jurors, and weeping witnesses.
- Cultural Currency: They entered popular culture — satirical plays, vaudeville sketches, and early films lampooned “breach of promise brides” or greedy plaintiffs chasing settlements. Editorials debated whether the suits protected women or simply encouraged fraud.
- Abuse Allegations: At the same time, the sheer number of cases and the sums at stake fueled charges that heart-balm actions had become a racket. Lawyers openly advertised their willingness to bring them, and wealthy bachelors complained that dating carried a “litigation risk.” Critics argued that the torts were being filed not just for redress but as weapons of blackmail: the mere threat of exposure could wring settlements from defendants desperate to avoid scandal.
Breach of Promise Suits: The Millionaire Jilts
Few legal actions fascinated the public more than breach of promise to marry. By the early 1900s, jurors and newspaper readers alike were treated to cases where women produced bundles of letters, tokens, and whispered promises as proof that a suitor had pledged marriage and then walked away.
In Chicago and New York, the press dubbed some of these cases the “millionaire jilt” trials, because wealthy businessmen or bankers were hauled into court by former fiancées. One Chicago stenographer famously introduced more than 200 love letters from an insurance executive, and the Tribune splashed excerpts across its front page. In New York, jurors heard testimony about furs, apartments, and European trips promised to a young woman who was later abandoned. The damages were staggering for the time — $20,000, $30,000, even $50,000 — enough to ruin reputations and fortunes.
The allure for newspapers was obvious: the courtroom became a stage for romance, betrayal, and financial scandal. What was supposed to be about contract law became high drama, and the public couldn’t get enough.
Seduction Suits and “Women’s Honor”
Seduction suits carried a different cultural weight. They were rooted in the idea that a woman’s chastity was her most valuable asset and that its loss outside marriage damaged not only her but her entire family. In many cases, women alleged that men had gained intimacy by falsely promising marriage.
In 1890s New York and Pennsylvania, juries handed down verdicts in the range of $10,000–$15,000 — equivalent to hundreds of thousands today. Newspapers lauded some as “triumphs for womanly virtue,” insisting that juries were right to punish men who abused their power. These cases reinforced the social order: men might face financial ruin if they failed to honor their marital promises, while women were cast as the bearers of family honor.
Criminal Conversation and Alienation of Affections
At the same time, criminal conversation (adultery suits) and alienation of affections actions underscored the sanctity of marriage. They weren’t confined to spurned lovers in courtship — they struck directly at infidelity inside marriages.
One widely reported Boston case in 1911 involved a wealthy industrialist who was ordered to pay $50,000 after a jury concluded he had carried on an affair with another man’s wife. In North Carolina, alienation cases were filed not only against lovers but also against meddling family members. Husbands sued overbearing mothers-in-law for “poisoning the marriage,” a phrase that appeared again and again in appellate opinions. These cases sent a clear signal: third parties who disrupted marriages could be held civilly liable, sometimes in devastating amounts.
The “Heart-Balm Rackets”
As verdicts escalated, so did criticism. By the 1920s, detractors warned that heart-balm litigation was no longer about protecting marriage but about exploiting scandal. Plaintiffs — and sometimes their lawyers — were accused of using lawsuits as leverage, threatening to air lurid details unless wealthy defendants settled quietly.
One Chicago breach of promise case in the 1920s collapsed when evidence surfaced that the plaintiff’s attorney had solicited a secret payoff to keep the story out of the papers. Such episodes fed the perception that these lawsuits were less about justice than about legalized blackmail.
The phrase “heart-balm racket” entered the American vocabulary, capturing the idea that the system itself was corrupt. Editorials thundered against it. In 1935, the Chicago Tribune declared: “No law more invites fraud, perjury, and extortion than the heart-balm statutes. They cloak blackmail in the garments of legal process.” That editorial echoed a nationwide sentiment: the golden age of heart-balm suits had become a gilded racket, and abolition was just around the corner.
Culture of Scandal
Heart-balm suits straddled a cultural divide: they were defended as protecting marriage and virtue, yet they were also public entertainment. Courtrooms filled with spectators eager to hear racy testimony. Newspapers reported verbatim passages of love letters, the fainting spells of plaintiffs on the witness stand, and the blushes of jurors asked to read intimate correspondence aloud.
By the 1920s, the contradictions had grown glaring. What once seemed like protection for women and marriage increasingly looked like a legalized form of scandal-mongering. The public’s appetite for sensational trials remained, but the legal system was beginning to lose patience. The stage was set for the abolition wave of the 1930s, when legislatures would sweep away breach of promise and seduction suits altogether. adulterous affairs unless large settlements were paid. The press began to label them “heart-balm rackets.”
The Abolition Movement (1930s–1940s)
The Great Depression marked the beginning of the end for the heart-balm torts. By the 1930s, Americans had grown weary of splashy courtroom dramas where private romances were paraded before juries and turned into six-figure verdicts. What had once been justified as protection of marriage and women’s honor now looked, to many, like legalized extortion.
The turning point came in 1935, when Indiana passed the first “anti-heart-balm” statute, abolishing actions for breach of promise to marry, seduction, and criminal conversation. The law was championed as a blow against what critics openly called the “heart-balm racket.” Newspapers across the country reported Indiana’s bold move, and editorials praised the legislature for ending what the Chicago Tribune had condemned as “a cloak for blackmail, fraud, and perjury.”
Other states rushed to follow. Within a decade, more than half the states had abolished some or all of the heart-balm actions. New York, Illinois, and California passed sweeping statutes shutting down breach of promise and seduction suits. Legislators argued that these actions:
- Degraded women, treating them as fragile victims whose only value was chastity or marriage.
- Invited abuse, since the threat of public scandal often led to hush-money settlements.
- No longer fit modern society, where divorce and women’s economic independence made the old remedies obsolete.
Courts echoed these critiques, calling heart-balm suits “relics of a bygone era” and doubting their compatibility with modern marriage.
By the mid-1940s, the legal landscape had changed dramatically. Breach of promise to marry and seduction actions were virtually extinct nationwide. Criminal conversation and alienation of affections lingered longer, largely in southern and midwestern states, but the tide had clearly turned. The age of the million-dollar jilts and seduction trials was over; legislatures and courts had slammed the door on most of the heart-balm tradition.
The Survivors: Criminal Conversation and Alienation of Affections
Even after the abolition wave of the 1930s and 1940s swept away breach of promise and seduction suits, two heart-balm torts refused to die: criminal conversation and alienation of affections. These actions continued to appear in courtrooms across the United States well into the mid-20th century.
Courts justified their survival by pointing to their supposed public value. Unlike breach of promise or seduction suits, which critics dismissed as thinly veiled blackmail, CC and AoA were tied directly to the institution of marriage itself. Judges reasoned that these torts:
- Deterred adultery by making paramours financially accountable.
- Protected marriages by discouraging third-party interference.
- Compensated innocent spouses for humiliation, loss of consortium, and emotional pain.
But the tide of legal reform continued to rise. As no-fault divorce laws spread in the 1960s and 1970s, marriage was increasingly treated as a personal partnership rather than a property-like contract. Heart-balm torts began to look less like protectors of marriage and more like archaic punishments out of step with modern autonomy and privacy.
By the 1980s, only a handful of states still recognized criminal conversation or alienation of affections. Most legislatures — and many courts acting on their own — declared them contrary to modern views of marriage, gender equality, and individual freedom. Where they survived, they often did so because courts insisted that abolition was a legislative task, not a judicial one.
Today, just a few jurisdictions — most prominently North Carolina and Mississippi — retain criminal conversation. Alienation of affections has a slightly wider footprint, surviving in North Carolina, Mississippi, South Dakota, Utah, New Mexico, and Hawaii. Everywhere else, the heart-balm tradition has been consigned to history books.
Modern Holdouts
By the early 21st century, the once-dominant heart-balm torts had been swept away across almost the entire United States. But a few jurisdictions have stubbornly kept them alive.
- Alienation of Affections: As of 2025, this cause of action is still recognized in just six states — North Carolina, Mississippi, South Dakota, Utah, New Mexico, and Hawaii. Even in those jurisdictions, filings are rare, but the doctrine lingers on the books, a reminder of its common law roots.
- Criminal Conversation: This strict-liability adultery action is even rarer. Today, it survives only in North Carolina and Mississippi, with North Carolina standing out as by far the most active forum. Here, CC suits regularly appear on trial dockets and sometimes result in high-dollar verdicts that capture national media attention.
Every other state has abolished these torts, either by statute or by judicial decision, often with the express rationale that they are archaic, sexist, or inconsistent with modern notions of marriage and personal autonomy.
That leaves North Carolina in an unusual position. In a country that largely abandoned the heart-balm tradition decades ago, North Carolina not only retains both criminal conversation and alienation of affections but also actively enforces them, making it the epicenter of modern heart-balm litigation in America.
North Carolina: The Last Great Battleground
No state has clung to the heart-balm torts with more tenacity than North Carolina. At a time when nearly every other jurisdiction in America was repealing or abandoning these claims, North Carolina doubled down. Here, criminal conversation and alienation of affections are not only alive but still actively litigated, with multimillion-dollar verdicts that attract national headlines.
Why North Carolina Held On
Several factors explain North Carolina’s unusual position:
- Judicial restraint: In Cannon v. Miller (1985), the North Carolina Supreme Court made clear that while other states’ courts were willing to strike these torts down, abolition in North Carolina would have to come from the legislature. Judges would not take that step themselves.
- Cultural emphasis on marriage: Public opinion and political culture in the state leaned toward protecting marriage and punishing those who interfered with it.
- Willing plaintiffs and receptive juries: North Carolina spouses continued to file these claims, and juries continued to award eye-catching damages, reinforcing their viability.
Notable Cases That Made Headlines
North Carolina’s modern heart-balm cases have produced some of the largest verdicts in the country:
- Hutelmyer v. Cox (1999) – A secretary was ordered to pay $1 million after an affair with her married boss.
- Oddo v. Presser (2003) – A jury awarded more than $1.4 million to a husband whose wife’s affections were alienated.
- Shackelford v. Lundquist (2010) – A sensational case that ended in a $9 million default judgment, one of the largest in state history.
These cases generated national media coverage, from The New York Times to ABC News, cementing North Carolina’s reputation as the last major outpost of heart-balm litigation.
2009 Reform: Narrowing but Not Abolishing
After decades of criticism, the General Assembly did act — but instead of abolishing alienation of affections and criminal conversation, lawmakers merely curtailed them through N.C.G.S. § 52-13. The statute imposed key limits:
- No liability for acts that occur after the spouses separate permanently.
- A three-year statute of limitations (with discovery rules for hidden affairs).
- Claims permitted only against natural persons, not employers or institutions.
The reform made the actions narrower and less prone to abuse, but it did not erase them.
Constitutional Challenges
Defendants have repeatedly argued that these torts violate constitutional rights — from privacy to free association. So far, the courts have disagreed:
- Malecek v. Williams (2017) – The Court of Appeals held that neither CC nor AoA are facially unconstitutional, emphasizing the state’s interest in protecting marriage.
- Estes v. Battiston (2020) and Hull v. Brown (2021) – Defendants tried procedural shortcuts to force constitutional review, but the courts insisted such arguments must be raised properly in trial courts.
The consistent message: North Carolina’s heart-balm torts remain valid law unless and until the legislature or Supreme Court decides otherwise.
✨ Why It Matters:
In 2025, North Carolina remains the epicenter of heart-balm litigation in America. It is one of only two states to still recognize criminal conversation and one of just a handful to allow alienation of affections. Its multimillion-dollar verdicts continue to shock outsiders while reflecting the state’s enduring belief that marriage deserves legal protection — and that those who interfere may pay dearly.
Policy Debate: Relic or Remedy?
The persistence of heart-balm torts — especially in North Carolina — continues to spark intense debate among judges, lawyers, scholars, and the public.
Critics
Opponents argue that these actions are legal relics, grounded in outdated notions of marriage as a property right. Their main criticisms are:
- Archaic origins: Criminal conversation and alienation of affections grew out of a time when wives were treated as their husbands’ property. Allowing modern spouses to sue for “theft” of affections, critics say, is inconsistent with contemporary views of marriage as an equal partnership.
- Prone to abuse: Heart-balm suits have long been associated with blackmail and extortion. Even today, critics warn that they can be used vindictively in divorce battles to embarrass a spouse or gain leverage in settlement negotiations.
- Better addressed in family law: Adultery is already recognized in divorce proceedings — as a fault ground for alimony in North Carolina, for instance. Critics argue it should not also generate a separate tort claim with potentially massive punitive damages.
- Out of step with modern autonomy: Most states abolished these torts precisely because they clash with evolving notions of privacy, sexual freedom, and personal autonomy in marriage.
As one North Carolina judge wrote in dissent, “This tort belongs in the museum, not the courtroom.”
Defenders
Supporters respond that abolishing these claims would leave injured spouses without meaningful redress. Their core arguments are:
- Accountability: Adultery isn’t just a private failing; it causes real, tangible harm to families. Making third parties financially accountable provides a measure of justice.
- Deterrence: The threat of a lawsuit may discourage would-be paramours from pursuing married partners.
- Compensation for real harms: Infidelity often leads to financial loss (separation of households, lost income), emotional anguish, humiliation, and even damage to reputation. Divorce alone may not provide adequate remedies for these harms.
- Protection of marriage as an institution: Defenders frame these torts as part of the state’s legitimate interest in preserving marriage. As the Court of Appeals put it in Malecek v. Williams (2017), the law serves “to protect the promise of monogamy that accompanies most marriage commitments.”
For many in North Carolina, the survival of these torts reflects a policy choice: the state values marriage strongly enough to provide a legal cause of action against those who interfere with it.
✨ Bottom line: The policy debate over heart-balm torts sits at the intersection of history, morality, and modern autonomy. To some, they are embarrassing relics of a patriarchal past. To others, they remain vital safeguards that hold people accountable for the destruction of families.
Conclusion
The history of the heart-balm torts is, at bottom, a history of how the law has tried to police love, intimacy, and betrayal. Born in England as property-based actions to protect a husband’s proprietary rights in his wife, they crossed the Atlantic and thrived in 19th-century America as moral guardians of marriage and female virtue. By the 20th century, however, they had become tabloid fodder and, in the eyes of many, instruments of extortion. Legislatures from Indiana to New York abolished them in waves, branding them relics of a bygone era.
And yet, they survive. In North Carolina — the last great battleground of heart-balm litigation — Criminal Conversation and Alienation of Affections remain firmly on the books. Though narrowed by statute in 2009 and repeatedly challenged on constitutional grounds, they continue to produce eye-catching verdicts and stir national debate.
Whether one views them as anachronistic holdovers or as necessary safeguards of marriage, their survival in North Carolina underscores a deeper truth: the law has long sought to provide some form of “balm” for the wounds of the heart. In most of the country that experiment is over. But in North Carolina, at least, the tradition endures — dramatic, controversial, and uniquely our own.
Adkins Law, PLLC — Huntersville, NC: A law firm located in Huntersville, North Carolina.
Adkins Law, PLLC is based in Huntersville, North Carolina, and proudly serves clients throughout Mecklenburg County and the Lake Norman area. Our attorneys focus on family law matters, including divorce, custody, equitable distribution, and the unique “heart-balm” torts of alienation of affections and criminal conversation. At Adkins Law, we combine compassionate counsel with aggressive advocacy to protect our clients’ rights, reputations, and families. If you are facing the difficult realities of marital interference or need clear guidance through a complex family law dispute, contact Adkins Law today to schedule a confidential consultation.
Leave a Reply