Doe v. Moe: There is No Negligent Sexual Intercourse in Boston
jonathanturley
Submitted by Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
A Massachusetts appeals court has let the sexually adventurous breathe a sigh of relief. When confronted with a man, discretely called “John Doe,” who alleged rather forcefully that his penis had been “fractured” by a particularly vigorous night of love-making, the Court accorded no relief. Doe alleged that his partner, Mary Moe (a pseudonym, I hope), had negligently engaged in sexual intercourse with him thereby fracturing his privates and rendering him “procreatively” dysfunctional. Damages for the injury were claimed of Ms. Moe, who defended saying basically, “you knew the job was dangerous when you took it.” A Boston Superior Court judge was having none of it, ruling that boyfriend-girlfriend relations were not the subject of a suit for damages because the act was consensual and thus the risk was assumed. No word on the exact “act” complained of by Doe. An appeals court agreed, but the wise judges there did leave in one caveat: there may be cases where the acts of one of the partners was so reckless as to exceed consent of the other, and damages would then be appropriate. Lorena Bobbitt comes to mind.
