The Ultimate Subrogation Contract: Man Sues Neighbor for Failure to Impregnate Wife

It is well-known that, as a Torts professor, I have made my share of anti-contracts statements — part of a long-standing feud between common law Torts and Contracts faculty. However, to make up for decades of badmouthing contracts, I give you a really interesting contracts case worthy of . . . well . . . a torts class. In Stuttgart, Germany, Demetrius Soupolos, 29, is suing his neighbor Frank Maus, 34, for breach of contract. It seems that Soupolos hired Maus for $2500 to impregnate his wife, a former beauty queen named Traute, but to his surprise Maus desperately tried 72 times without success.

Soupolos hired Maus when he found out that he was sterile and realized that Maus not only had two children but looked remarkably like him. Maus tried and tried for three evenings a week for the next six months. When Maus’ wife objected, he explained I don’t like this any more than you. I’m simply doing it for the money. Try and understand.”

The efforts, however, proved fruitless that there did not appear to be an acceleration clause in this particular sexual subrogation contract.

Just for the record, this could have been brought as a torts action under fraud and battery charges in the United States. Indeed, if this was not a “casual seller,” it could have been brought under product liability.

It turns out that she understood all too well. After the failure to fulfill the contract, Soupolos insisted on a medical exam which found that Maus was also sterile. It turns out that his two kids (unbeknownst to him) were the product of an affair of his wife with another man (who should have been contractor on this job).

It does not appear that this contract had a force majeure clause for such an act of God.

To paraphrase Shakespeare, Default, my dear Maus, is not the sex the but in yourself.

For the story, click here.