Adultery, kidnapping and technology
Thursday, April 1, 2010 at 11:25
Posted by Marcel Strigberger
Nine million dollars. That’s what a North Carolina jury awarded Cynthia Shackleton against Anne Linquist, a college employee, for alienation of affection. The breakdown is five million dollars for general and four million dollars for punitive damages. Mrs Shackleton said in an interview that this decision should be a message to any women who want to move in on married men and commit adultery. Aren’t those words of wisdom! I am sure that as a result of her case America will now see a drastic drop in the incidents of adultery. And I’d say the chances of Mrs Shackleton collecting the 9 million are about as likely as the University of Ottawa awarding an honourary Doctor of Laws degree to Ann Coulter.
Actually alienation of affection actions are available in 6 other states, to wit, New Mexico, Hawaii, South Dakota, Illinois, Mississippi and Utah. In Utah for that matter chances are good that the extra marital affair a guy has will still be with a wife.
I believe this judgment will give the wife of Tiger Woods some ideas for a legal action. I’ll bet anyone 5-1 odds that Tiger likely had some mistresses in each of those 7 qualifying states.
And in Germany four seniors got sentenced to jail for kidnapping their financial advisor and demanding that he repay them losses in the ballpark of 2.5 million Euros. The conviction rather surprises me. The money guru no doubt misadvised them blowing their life savings. I fail to see what they did wrong. At their age, what do you expect them to do? Spend five years running through the courts waving around the Hedley Byrne case?
It is no secret that I hate technology. And until last week, I proudly considered myself a Luddite. But I just found out the origin of the Luddites. About 200 years ago a group of weavers in northern England formed a secret society to combat the effects the use of machinery was having on their occupation. They claimed technology was making their trade obsolete. Their means of protest included vandalizing cloth factories and harassing and terrorizing their owners. They did not go by names, but rather by numbers. After conducting a hit, they would leave behind a message, such as, “Assaulted by number 41.”
Although I shun technology, I cannot identify with their violent means and I hereby renounce my status as a Luddite. I do wonder however if they are still around and if Luddites are responsible for those notes we find pinned to our shirt collars, reading something like , “Inspected by number 34". I am not a vindictive person but I recently had one of those pins prick my neck. If anyone ever finds out who number 17 is, let me know. I’ll hunt him down, tie him up and wave a Blackberry in his face.
Actually alienation of affection actions are available in 6 other states, to wit, New Mexico, Hawaii, South Dakota, Illinois, Mississippi and Utah. In Utah for that matter chances are good that the extra marital affair a guy has will still be with a wife.
I believe this judgment will give the wife of Tiger Woods some ideas for a legal action. I’ll bet anyone 5-1 odds that Tiger likely had some mistresses in each of those 7 qualifying states.
And in Germany four seniors got sentenced to jail for kidnapping their financial advisor and demanding that he repay them losses in the ballpark of 2.5 million Euros. The conviction rather surprises me. The money guru no doubt misadvised them blowing their life savings. I fail to see what they did wrong. At their age, what do you expect them to do? Spend five years running through the courts waving around the Hedley Byrne case?
It is no secret that I hate technology. And until last week, I proudly considered myself a Luddite. But I just found out the origin of the Luddites. About 200 years ago a group of weavers in northern England formed a secret society to combat the effects the use of machinery was having on their occupation. They claimed technology was making their trade obsolete. Their means of protest included vandalizing cloth factories and harassing and terrorizing their owners. They did not go by names, but rather by numbers. After conducting a hit, they would leave behind a message, such as, “Assaulted by number 41.”
Although I shun technology, I cannot identify with their violent means and I hereby renounce my status as a Luddite. I do wonder however if they are still around and if Luddites are responsible for those notes we find pinned to our shirt collars, reading something like , “Inspected by number 34". I am not a vindictive person but I recently had one of those pins prick my neck. If anyone ever finds out who number 17 is, let me know. I’ll hunt him down, tie him up and wave a Blackberry in his face.
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