Former U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema is continuing to challenge the lawsuit brought by the wife of her former security guard and lover, Matthew Ammel. Sinema has admitted to having an affair with Ammel while she was the Democratic senator from Arizona. Heather Ammel’s lawsuit alleges the tort of alienation of affection, an action many may find outdated in our more open or indulgent culture. I start teaching my torts class this week, and the alienation tort remains a controversy at the intersection of tort and constitutional law.
There was a time when most states had morality crimes that punished adultery or homosexuality. They have been largely scrubbed from our books due to constitutional challenges and changing social mores. However, a spouse can still sue civilly over a third party ruining a marriage through adultery.
Such “heart balm” actions go back to the earliest days of tort liability. However, the tort has been abolished in 42 states, leaving Hawaii, North Carolina, Mississippi, New Mexico, South Dakota, and Utah as the exceptions.
Early tort cases spoke of two violative acts: enticement and seduction. The tort of enticement “involved assisting or inducing a wife to leave her husband by means of fraud, violence, or persuasion.” Seduction was more straightforward and only required “an adulterous relationship between the plaintiff’s spouse and the defendant.”‘
Critics have long charged that this tort is based in early concepts of the wife being the property of the husband and that there are lingering constitutional questions over holding individuals liable for consensual sexual relationships.
That proprietary element echoes in some of the earliest English cases, such as Winsmore v. Greenback (1745). In that case, a man was sued for “maliciously and wickedly intending to injure the plaintiff … and to alienate the affection of the wife from the plaintiff.” The Court found that the paramour had “persuaded procured and enticed the said wife” and thereby denied the husband of his “exclusive and legally enforceable right to his wife’s service.” Winsmore v. Greenbank, Willes 577. 125 Eng. Repts. 1330 (1745)); see also Michele Crissman, Alienation of Affection: An Ancient Tort – But Still Alive in South Dakota, 48 S.D. L. Rev. 518, 519 (2003); Jamie Heard, The National Trend of Abolishing Actions for the Alienation of a Spouse’s Affection and Mississippi’s Refusal to Follow Suit, 28 Miss. C. L. Rev. 313 (2008-2009).
State courts have found the action to be outmoded and abused:
“The public ha[s] come to look upon ‘heart balm’ suits as devices for extracting large sums of money without proper justification. They [a]re a fruitful source of coercion, extortion and blackmail. Manufactured suits, with their always present threat of publicity, [a]re often used to force a settlement . . . [T]here is good reason to believe that even genuine actions [a]re ‘brought more frequently than not, with purely mercenary or vindictive motives; that it is impossible to compensate for such damage with what has derisively been called ‘heart balm’ . . . and that no preventative purpose is served, since such torts seldom are committed with deliberate plan.'”
Magierowski v. Buckley, 121 A.2d 749, 756 (N.J. Super. 1956).
North Carolina is one of the holdouts. Sinema’s counsel moved the case to federal court and then sought to dismiss it on the jurisdictional grounds that none of the sex occurred in North Carolina.
In depositions, Sinema confirmed sexual encounters beginning in California at the home of her friends Penny and Grant Croissant: “We were staying at an Airbnb in Napa, California. We were outside. Matt kissed me. We went inside and had sex.”
She also detailed having sex with Ammel at the wedding of CNN anchor Jessica Dean in New York City as well as at her Washington, D.C. apartment, in Arizona, and in Colorado.
The jurisdictional question is whether the denial of sex in North Carolina means that the courts there lack jurisdiction, as opposed to the claim that the shattered marriage (and injury) still rests in North Carolina.
The parties do not contest the underlying violation of the marriage. The case is rife with photos, including one sent by Sinema of herself in a towel, and such messages as “Putting my hand on your heart. I’ll see you soon. I miss you.”
The wife eventually uncovered the affair after Ammel allegedly came home intoxicated and she found a message on his phone from Sinema reading “I hope your day was okay. Thinking of you. I am with you. I keep waking up during my sleep and reaching over for your arms to hold me.”
Heather Ammel would write to her husband to encourage him to break off the affair, calling Sinema “insidious” and “a woman who is willing to break up a family.”
After separating on November 1, 2024, the couple divorced in March 2026. An evidentiary hearing is scheduled for Aug. 19th.
While the Supreme Court struck down the criminalization of same sex marriage in Obergefell v. Hodges and consensual sex between adults is viewed as protected, it has never found alienation torts to be unconstitutional.
The tort liability presents a novel and different question. Unlike the criminalization of consensual sexual relationships, this tort addresses the harm of conduct to a third person. Heather Ammel had a marriage contract and relied on it as the foundation for her home and family with multiple children.
Many today would argue that her husband and his deceit caused the harm, not the third party. If a spouse violates their solemn oath of matrimony, the loss of affection was likely due to a breakdown in the marriage, not the third party. The action still has a proprietary element: the “other man” or “other woman” poached a partner who legally belongs to you.
However, the question is whether such “heart balm” injuries remain within the right of states to recognize and allow citizens to recover for. It is technically not a punishment for adultery with the other person but alienation or harm to the spouse.
Ironically, the case, and any challenges, could represent one of the most lasting legacies from Sinema’s career. The question is not whether her actions were “wicked and malicious” under the common law, but whether you can be sued today for such conduct.
Other torts have changed in light of evolving social values, such as defamation actions that were once based on statements that a woman is “unchaste.”
While courts have struck down or eliminated morality laws on constitutional grounds, alienation of affection remains a lingering morality tort with strong religious underpinnings. In Proverbs 11:18, the Bible states, “The wicked man does deceptive work, but righteousness brings a sure reward.” The question is whether a “righteous” litigant can still recover for the “wickedness” of others.
Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the best-selling author of “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.” He teaches torts and constitutional law at George Washington University.
Here is an update to this story. https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/6073058-kyrsten-sinema-homewrecker-law-judge-ruling/
“Heather Ammel had a marriage contract and relied on it as the foundation for her home and family with multiple children”
This is delusional, if not an outright lie. Marriage is no-fault, and only the female gets relief, in most cases, if the marriage ends. Worse, while women initiate the majority of divorces, that number approaches 100% when children are involved. Women rely on divorce courts, not the marriage ‘contract,’ as the foundation of HER home and family.
This is stupid. In the vast majority of states, it depends not on sex, but on the earnings, past and potential, to determine who gets what relief.
In the comedy tv series “Seinfeld” the character “George Costanza” cited great harm of his parents staying together. In the episode he says he suffered harm from his parents NOT getting divorced.
Would this be a tort lawsuit also? Can a child sue his parents for staying together?
Using a little common sense. Private insurance companies sometimes refuse to insure high risk ventures. The private market assesses risk and charges a higher premium.
Anyone that get’s married is entering a high risk venture with a 50% risk of failure rate. The plaintiff spouse knew she was entering a high risk game and it was likely to fail.
Tort lawsuits recognize unique cases where plaintiffs are harmed and conventional laws don’t protect them. This plaintiff knowingly entered into a high risk venture – marriage. Not your typical tort case.
Doesn’t this tort precedent open up a can of worms? Would an employer of a workaholic employee be liable for breaking up a marriage?
Could the negatively affected spouse sue the employer?
In my neck of the woods, several years ago, a successful businessman (on his 3rd wife) brought a suit against a man for the same thing. He was willing to live with the embarrassment & notoriety it would bring, because the lawsuit confirmed the wife had violated the terms of her pre-nuptial agreement. Even taking into account the attorney fees, he came out ahead on the deal.
Why can’t this action be brought under the tort of tortuous interference with the marriage contract? After all, the state has taken religion out of marriage and used it as a contract between the parties, that if placed in jeopardy, would cause massive monetary damages to one party or another in a contested divorce.
Imagine making consensual sex illegal.
In Trump’s glass house, should MAGA Republicans be throwing stones at Sinema? Couldn’t you change the names to Donald, Melania and Stormy Daniels?
Was that the time Donald cheated with a pregnant wife back home?
TDS strikes again.
$. Yes, these cases have wings in NC. Senator Sinema better be quiet at this point and attorneys , too. These cases are civil suits and are pain and suffering claims. Mrs. Allmer is bringing the attention at this point for humiliation. Sinema isn’t humiliated.
Mr. And Mrs. Allmer could be Bonnie and Clyde setting a trap for Sinema and reap money. Mr. Allmer may have shown the photos to his wife and said I can’t get rid of her. Let’s make some money. She’s not Hillary and didn’t stand by her man.
People hate people like Sinema, Monica Lewinsky etc., both men and women. If it’s innocent Mr. Allmer may have been reminding himself that he’s still a free man?
These are bad news cases. Pay the 75, 000 and face the campaign finance people next. Mr. Allmer walks away.
Mrs. Allmer consented to the affair when Mr. Allmer consented to the affair. They’re 1 under the law. It’s no fault or both fault.
Marriages are dangerous things. If Mr. Allmer was in a car wreck so too is Mrs. Allmer for as long as the marriage is in force. Sinema is really a bystander. Sinema couldn’t have wrecked the marriage but for Mr. and Mrs. Allmer’s bad marriage. Sinema is a victim.
As to malicious and wicked, it doesn’t apply. Malicious and wicked references a scenario such as Iago seeking to deprive Othello of what he loved most, Desdemona. Sinema did not seek to deprive Mrs. Allmer of her husband as a vindictive and wicked action. Sinema didn’t know Mrs. Allmer.
Condolences to Mrs. Allmer. Don’t rifle your husband’s wallet or your next husband’s wallet.
Upon further consideration, I have changed my views. This family was probably marginal financially, even before Senator Sinema began workshopping her sexual freedom policies with the PTSD, TBI sole breadwinner of the family, who was her employee.
Every member of the family is probably even more marginal financially now.
The household where the custodial spouse and children live post divorce is usually poorer than when there were two adults in one household dedicated to keeping things together.
The ex-husband is probably not getting bodyguard work now, and a good recommendation from the last person whose body he guarded would probably not count for much. His household is probably in rough shape financially too.
My new guess is that I don’t think she’s suing because she’s vindictive.
I now think that she’s suing because she and her children have sustained a financial blow because of two other people. I think she’s suing for survival.
Finally, if she hasn’t already, she needs to get a job outside the home and make bank herself. Maybe some kind of Veterans service job, as she successfully navigated VA bureaucracy to get her then-husband a disability finding and residential treatment for substance abuse. This wife was really trying here. This husband had hard and boring jobs and tried to support his family. Then came all the trips and the strange.
Players should limit their game to other players. I fault Sinema for going after an apparent regular.
In the ultra-conservative Old Testament style marriage, it was perfectly proper for men to do this and up until the 1970’s in the USA women were still considered “property” of their husbands.
Women weren’t allowed to have their own bank account unless given permission by their husband. Women weren’t allowed to vote until 1920 in the good ole USA!
Prior to 2003, in Texas cohabitation, recreational sex and premarital sex were illegal for straight heterosexual couples, although selectively enforced against LGBT-Texans. Mike Johnson supported many of these laws.
Whatever the U.S. Supreme Court rules, will that ruling apply equally to women as to men? The question today is do Americans want to be American or more like Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia?
Personally, if you have sex with someone else’s spouse before they get the divorce, I think you should be liable. You’ve damaged that relationship and, as Turley said, in this case the wife depended upon that relationship and had a legal right to do so. She had multiple children so clearly invested heavily in this relationship. I also think it should swing both ways if a man seduces someone else’s wife or woman seduces someone else’s husband.
Can they sue the alcohol companies and bars on the same basis – because serving alcohol or selling alcohol often leads to the dissolution of a marriages?
It’s a fact that after people marry, they sometimes come to realize that their marriage was a mistake. People change as they age, and oftentimes grow apart. Sometimes, mental illness and/or substance abuse problems develop. It’s not unheard of for someone to realize that they are bisexual or homosexual after entering into a heterosexual marriage. Many marriages are marriages of convenience–to escape a bad home situation, for financial security, for help getting an education, or reasons other than love. After those needs are met–what’s left if love wasn’t there to begin with?
If you in an unsatisfying marriage and then meet someone who is more compatible and with whom you could be happy, should you be forced to stay married to the person you no longer love–or should that other person be somehow legally liable for damages under the theory of “seduction”? Most people don’t think so. I personally don’t think someone cane “seduce” a spouse who is in a happy, fulfilling marriage–unless that spouse is someone who is just plain promiscuous in the first place. If that’s the case, the other person isn’t the problem. As their spouse, you can either accept this or get divorced, if their love for you is not strong enough to get them to quit their ways.
But, there are ethical ways to handle the situation when a marriage has failed. You should absolutely NOT lie to your spouse (if confronted about having a sexual or emotional relationship with someone else, just don’t answer); don’t try to hide assets; don’t try to use children, whether they are adult children or minors, as a weapon against your spouse. Don’t try to line up relatives and friends into camps for or against you or your spouse. You should not abuse your spouse physically or mentally, and if divorce is inevitable, be fair–about division of property, child custody and parenting time–everything. You should really strive to remain friends with your spouse, if at all possible, and prevent bitterness. There are some red states that want to make it next to impossible to divorce, or go back to the old system where “fault” had to be proven–like mental cruelty, adultery, abandonment or desertion, habitual drunkeness, bigamy or incest, or conviction of certain serious crimes. That’s why, in old movies and TV shows, they refer to a spouse “giving” the other a divorce–in other words, not putting up a fight when the other spouse who wanted out of the marriage. It used to be the case that if a man divorced a woman, he had to keep supporting her until she remarried–“alimony”. That is no longer the law in my state anyway, unless the spouse is disabled. The state won’t let you dump your disabled spouse onto the welfare rolls. It should not be the government’s business to make the dissolution of a marriage any more difficult than it already is.
..we really can’t use the word ‘poach’ here bc Sinema never talked about asking Ammel to get divorsed so he could marry her. This was an affair.. it was about consenual sex… and the wife found out by invading the privacy of his cellphone, not bc he told her.. i.e., he never told her I’m leaving you for another woman whom I’m going to marry (ergo no getting poached). The marriage was obvioulsy already broken if Ammel proceeded to have ongoing sex with another woman to the point where they became lovers. When a wife has to beg a spouse to give up his affair, begging just proves that the marital communication has broken down already… Even in light of the possibility that Sinema is a man-eating sexual siren who actively put on her charms, Ammel didn’t have to give in.. and indeed he should NOT have given in.. it was his professional duty to just be her bodyguard and it was time for him to immediately put an end to any such Activity and leave/ resign rather than give in to the temptation (.. if that were the case..as in Bill Clinton giving in to his WH fling ) … a man with a strong marriage combined with a strong professionalism as a serious bodyguard would have immediately resigned and found another assignment. The wife should be suing the husband for loss of affection, not Sinema. And then the husband could counter-sue for the same reason. It’s not right for Sinema to take the burden for their marriage breakdown
Well, I agree with you about the husband, but it’s also Sinema’s fault. She knew he was married and yes, she did poach him regardless of what the communication was like in the marriage. Further, she was the senator so she was dealing from a position of power over the security guard.
She is our of office, I couldn’t care less who she is banging now.
Still drunk huh?
SSM wasn’t “criminalized” before Obergerfell. To be sure, it wasn’t legally recognized in many states. But that doesn’t mean it was a violation of criminal law for a same-sex couple to have their union solemnized by a minister and cohabitate as if they were a married couple.
You should correct the error in your essay.
#. NC has this law. Sinema has a weak case. Taxes paid for the security detail? American giggalos. 😏. She was a senator at the time. It’s not a morality case. It’s using taxpayer money for trips and concerts.
#. FEC is investigating campaign money used to pay Ammel and trips? Ammel was hired as part of Sinema’s congressional staff, 51,000 paid? Possibly 600,000 in campaign finance pay outs for staff? Senator Sinema’s security head told Mr. Ammel she was resigning as head of security because the senator was sleeping with security staff?
Doesn’t look good. Sinema is giving Bill Clinton’s reputation a run. This domiciled in NC is in question as to location? Does Georgia have no fault?
Adieu
Giving Bill Clinton’s reputation a run for OUR money…
Did she rape this guy against his will?
Doesn’t matter, Juanita. The law in NC is the law. It’s like Epstein. 17 in NY and 16 in NM and 18 in Florida for consent but traveling across state lines is federal and that got him. Seduction is apparently present. He needed a job 😂. Sorry but Mrs. Ammel has a case. They traveled across state lines? He was paid?
#. Apparently Sinema used her security detail plural, as a personal stable, harem. Sinemas head of security resigned because of it. Has she offered sworn testimony?
The law is the law in NC. The personal motivation of Sinema’s behavior isn’t the issue. She obviously selected unavailable men. They aren’t a threat to her freedom? She may be unaware of her behavior, blind, but it’s not the issue. NC has a law.
It’s so similar to Wade and Willis I can’t take it seriously.
#. Alienation of affection cases? I’ll see what there is.
Sinema is in for misuse of campaign funds. Mrs. Allmer needs better lawyers. I don’t think Sinema was being malicious. Mr. Allmers career is certainly wrecked. Sinema might pay the 75, 000 and walk away.