heartbalm statute

heartbalm statute. A state law that abolishes the rights of action for monetary damages as solace for the emotional trauma occasioned by a loss of love and relationship. • The abolished rights of action include alienation of affections, breach of promise to marry, criminal conversation, and seduction of a person over the legal age of consent. Many states today have enacted heartbalm statutes primarily because of the highly speculative nature of the injury and the potential for abusive prosecution, as well as the difficulties of determining the cause of a loss. The terminology in this field is somewhat confusing, since a heartbalm statute abolishes lawsuits that were known as heartbalm suits; some scholars therefore call the abolitionary statutes anti-heartbalm statutes. But the prevailing term is heartbalm statute. — Also written heart-balm statute.

— Also termed heartbalm act; anti-heartbalm statute; anti-heartbalm act. [Cases: Breach of Marriage Promise 14; Husband and Wife 323, 341; Seduction

3. C.J.S. Breach of Marriage Promise §§ 2, 12, 14.]

“Under the English common law, a broken engagement might be followed by a lawsuit for breach of promise to marry …. [T]he action came to look more like a tort action, in which damages might be given for the injury to the plaintiff’s feelings, health and reputation and for expenses such as costs incurred in preparing for a wedding. Widespread criticism of the suit for breach of promise to marry (as well as related tort actions including seduction and alienation of affections) led to the passage of ‘heart balm’ statutes abolishing these claims in many jurisdictions in the United States beginning in the 1930’s.” Homer H. Clark Jr. & Ann Laquer Estin, Domestic Relations: Cases and Problems 47 (6th ed. 2000).

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