Shaw v. Stringer, 8921SC226
| Decision Date | 05 February 1991 |
| Docket Number | No. 8921SC226,8921SC226 |
| Citation | 101 N.C.App. 513,400 S.E.2d 101 |
| Court | North Carolina Court of Appeals |
| Parties | Ernest A. SHAW, Plaintiff, v. Preston E. STRINGER, Defendant. |
David R. Tanis, Winston-Salem, for plaintiff-appellee.
Nelson, Boyles & Niblock by H. David Niblock, Winston-Salem, for defendant-appellant.
The ten arguments defendant makes in his brief--none of which refer to the assignments of error that they are based on as Rule 28(b)(5) of our appellate rules requires--raise only three questions for determination; as some of the arguments address the same basic issue as others, some concern formal matters of no consequence to the appeal, and others are based on grounds either not asserted in the trial or properly assigned as error. The three questions that defendant effectively raises and which we will address in sequence are: Did the court err to defendant's prejudice in submitting the alienation of affections issue to the jury; in receiving evidence that defendant did not support his children and plaintiff helped do so and got along well with them; and in submitting the punitive damages issue to the jury and instructing them with respect to it?
Even if submitting the alienation of affections issue to the jury was error defendant suffered no prejudice, since no damages were assessed against defendant as a consequence. But submitting the issue was not error because the evidence, when viewed in its most favorable light for plaintiff, supported it. The evidence that plaintiff had to present for the issue to go to the jury was simply that before defendant's wrongful intervention in their marriage his wife had genuine love and affection for him and that because of defendant's wrongful conduct that love and affection was alienated. Chappell v. Redding, 67 N.C.App. 397, 313 S.E.2d 239, disc. review denied, 311 N.C. 399, 319 S.E.2d 268 (1984). Defendant's argument that such evidence was not presented is based upon the testimony of plaintiff's wife that before the illicit liaison began she loved defendant. This evidence, so defendant argues, establishes as a matter of law that plaintiff's wife had no love and affection for plaintiff that he could have alienated, and thus it was error to submit the issue. But that is not the only evidence on the issue. In substance, what plaintiff's wife testified to in that regard was that she loved defendant, as well as plaintiff, but in "a different way;" and both plaintiff and his wife testified that before defendant's wrongful intervention that each genuinely loved the other and an affectionate relationship existed between them, which defendant's wrongdoing terminated. Thus, whether his wife in fact had love and affection for plaintiff before defendant wrongfully intermeddled in their marriage was not for the court to say, but the jury. Sebastian v. Kluttz, 6 N.C.App. 201, 170 S.E.2d 104 (1969). That plaintiff's wife loved defendant "in a way" and willingly yielded to his advances may indicate that her affection for him was less than what it might have been; but it does not establish either in law or fact that she had no affection for plaintiff that could be alienated. For in this area of life, as in others, our law sensibly recognizes that people often differ in their feelings and reactions to the myriad circumstances that occur during life's changing course. To have the jury consider the issue plaintiff did not have to prove that his wife had no affection for anyone else, or that their marriage was previously one of untroubled bliss; he had to prove only that before defendant wrongfully interfered in their marriage his wife had some genuine love and affection for him, and that that love and affection was lost to him as a result of that wrongdoing.
As to the evidence about defendant not supporting his children and plaintiff helping to do so and getting along well with them, defendant argues that receiving it was prejudicial error because it was not relevant to any of the issues being tried. We disagree. The evidence is quite relevant to the issue just discussed--whether plaintiff's wife had any love...
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