McManis Faulkner successfully defended our client in a civil lawsuit alleging over $1 million in damages for assault and battery, emotional distress, conversion, and Marvin claims relating to alleged breaches of agreements regarding property and support. The parties, who met in 2004, had an 8.5-year relationship before getting married in 2012. Following a short marriage, plaintiff filed for divorce in May, 2014. At the same time, she also filed a civil action, alleging that our client had engaged in multiple acts of domestic violence over the course of the marriage – even though there had been no violence between them while they were dating – and that during the course of their relationship, he had promised to “buy her a house” and to “take care of her for the rest of her life.”
McManis Faulkner represented the client in both the divorce case and the civil action. The Family Court adjudicated the parties’ property interests, entering a judgment declaring a disputed townhouse to be our client’s sole and separate property and finding that he owed no future support to plaintiff. Based on this result, McManis Faulkner argued in the civil case that the property issues had been fully and completely decided in Family Court and that plaintiff was not entitled to a “second bite of the apple” by trying them again in the civil case. The Court agreed and dismissed them from the lawsuit. The remaining domestic violence and emotional distress claims – which our client denied – proceeded to a jury trial.
At trial, our medical expert testified plaintiff showed no signs of current, permanent, or future injury as a result of anything defendant supposedly did, and that most, if not all, of plaintiff’s complaints dated back to earlier incidents and had nothing to do with our client. Following a three-day trial and deliberations that lasted only two hours, the jury returned a verdict in defendant’s favor on all counts, finding unanimously that our client had not engaged in any violence or threats of violence against the plaintiff, nor was he the cause of any of her emotional distress.