A Man Wanted To Sue His Wife Because Their Baby Was Ugly

(00:00.558)

Please rise, court is now in session. I strenuously object. A legal podcast brought to you by the Pittsburgh law firmof Flaherty Fardo is now in session. All those seeking information about the law and legal matters affecting the people of Pittsburgh and the Commonwealthof Pennsylvania, half -baked opinions and a dose of self -indulgence are invited to attend and participate. I want the truth! You can't handle thetruth! The defense strenuously objects. You would!

Call the first witness. Welcome to IStrenuously Object. We're going to do the ugly baby case or no case. Joining usyet again. I don't know if we can kind of mute it for his purposes, right? It's the Godfather. We're going to call him the Godfather. Godfather is joining us,okay? Turn the sound back on. Joining us today is Everyday Ron, the man of...

six opinions and the juror extraordinaire andof course a longtime friend of attorney Noah Fardo, the two of them are bothjoining us today. Noah, how are you? Ron, how are you? Morning, William.Morning, Ron. Morning. Thanks for having me. Thanks for joining us. And we'regoing to start here and get back into another case or no case. And this is themuch teased and at least once maligned ugly baby.

You gotta see the baby. When are you gonna seethe baby? So here's the situation, and I don't have under... I haven't foundthis underlying case. So like literally the blurb I give you is all I've got asfar as actual knowledge of what happened. But we can bandy about somehypotheticals. We've got a husband here who saw his newborn daughter and said,that child is just too ugly. Is it me or was that the ugliest baby you have?

ever seen. That is a quote, incredibly uglyend quote baby. And relevantly did not look like either parent. So he accusedhis wife of cheating on him, right? She must have cheated on me with some uglyguy because look at this ugly baby. It was like a pecan -y. Doesn't look likeher who's pretty. Doesn't look like me. At that point, the wife admits that infact what happened is she had several plastic surgeries before they met. Andso.

(02:22.446)

She, I guess, was previously much uglier thanwhat she was by the time this guy met and married her. She didn't tell himabout the plastic surgery before they were married. So he sued, basicallyclaiming that it was fraud, right? That she misled him by not disclosing theseprior plastic surgeries, her prior cosmetic history before the two of them weremarried. Right? So.

He's filing a suit, presumably sounding infraud, although the underlying facts didn't make clear exactly the grounds. Inote that the place where I read this blurb indicated that he successfully wonhis case and that the wife had to pay him some $120 ,000. We can talk aboutwhat might or might not swing the balance on that, but before we do, I'm gonnathrow it to you, Noah. Case or no case? What a snuggly baby. Isn't that whatElaine says?

I said some snuggly baby. Maybe that's whatthis guy meant to say too. I mean, from what I understand in my life is that ifI mate with someone, their genetics could take hold or my genetics could takehold and they could mix and give us a third result. And then it's sosubjective, ugly, right? I mean,

I'm not buying this at all, Bill. I need somearguments as to why this is a case. But if you ask me just from what I heard,this is not a case. Everyday Ron, your thoughts? Did you say that this childwas biologically this gentleman's child? We proved that? As far as I know, Idon't know that there was ever a paternity test, right? But he made anaccusation to his wife saying, you cheated on me because look at this child.And her response is I didn't cheat on you, but I did have a bunch of plasticsurgery.

Um, so yeah, I mean, obviously it's adifferent situation if it turns out she actually cheated on him or assumingfrom, from the blur by red and whatever else. The issue here is not that shecheated on him, but that she did not disclose a history of cognitive surgeriesthat predated their meeting. Okay. To me, it's going to hinge on whether this,uh, the paternity test, if, if this child is this dude's child, then there iszero case here. He's producing ugly offspring. It's his problem. It's hisfault. He should be sued.

(04:41.486)

Are there certain things that if he hadwithheld from her before the marriage, she would have had a case against him?In other words, maybe his net worth or if he had been a convicted criminal andhadn't told her before the marriage or an athlete or his athletic ability. Imean, I'm thinking about suing my wife. I know how good of an athlete I was.Why aren't my children better? It's not me, right? Definitely not you. Thereare kind of two principles that I think I want to talk about here legally tohelp illustrate the land that we're in, right?

The first of which is spousal tort immunity.So at the old common law, none of this matters because you can't sue yourhusband or wife, right? There are a few jurisdictions where that's still thecase, where you simply cannot file a lawsuit alleging any tort against yourspouse. Now that's not necessarily in play here, but like there are places thathave different and modified rules about that. So theoretically, if your spousemisrepresents to you, you know, some fact and then

Apart from marrying them, you take some otherspecific action and reliance on that, right? I'm trying to think of an examplehere. Let's say you misrepresented your athletic abilities in the past. And soyou start paying for a bunch of expensive coaching for your kid because youthink that kid's got athlete genes. And it turns out you were just lying aboutthat. Theoretically, I could sue my spouse saying, I wouldn't have spent thismoney on this athletic coaching if I knew the unathletic stock from which youtruly came.

That's not going to be a particularly strongcase under the circumstances either, but it's at least something that thatexists, right? You can in fact sue your spouse for misrepresenting things toyou if you then go ahead and take other actions in reliance. But if aftermarriage you invest with them in some sort of company or some sort ofinvestment and they didn't disclose to you some terrible, terrible debt thatthey were in and that affected your investment as well, would that apply?

I would distinguish suing your spouse forfraud where the decision that you make is separate from and subsequent to themarriage itself, and fraud where the fraudulent act you took was agreeing tomarry them in the first place. Right? Suing your spouse saying, if you had toldme this truth, I would not have bought plane tickets to what turns out not tohave been your true homeland, so I can sue you for $10 ,000.

(07:07.822)

because you're not really from where you saidyou're from. And suing them saying, I would have never married you. Now, that'snot to say there's nothing that happens, right, if they fraudulently induce youinto marriage, but I don't think there's a freestanding civil action or tortfor that. What you can do is you can get an annulment. Now, I am typicallyaccustomed to hearing like, well, look, there's divorce at civil law. Annulmentis more of like a canon law process, religious annulments.

that people get for religious purposesseparate from and typically on top of a civil divorce as opposed to anannulment. But there is a civil annulment. There are limited factors set forthin the law that tell you under certain circumstances, you know, includingcertain kinds of fraud, that can be a basis to go in front of the court and getyour marriage annulled. But you can't sue for damages because choosing to marrysomeone, it's...

you don't just get to sue under like basiccontract theory for that specific decision. There's a whole area of law dealingwith divorce. We can't turn divorce cases into breach of contract. Andsimilarly, if you're fraudulently induced into marrying someone, you can'ttreat that like fraudulently being induced into a normal contract. There's awhole area of law governing annulments. Call a family lawyer, talk about whatyour options are. In a lot of regards,

you know, an annulment or a divorce work outkind of the same from practical perspectives, but not in every case. So youmight have a claim for an annulment if what you're doing is trying to end yourmarriage and say this marriage was never valid in the first place. But I thinkfrom a legal perspective, that is different from asking the court to award youdamages because you chose to marry somebody. So this case is not a really anugly baby case.

The ugly baby is just something that was acatalyst for this guy to then later discover that his wife had some plasticsurgery and was ugly. It's an ugly wife case that became beautiful. It's asecretly ugly wife case. It's an ugly black swan. And again, like no case. Iknow girls that were ugly as kids, right? And then by the time we got to highschool, my buddies wanted to date them.

(09:26.062)

Is that fraud? Because she was ugly, you know,as a child, right? I mean, yes, it does seem like the plaintiff in this casemay have jumped to some premature conclusions, right? You could have an uglyduckling that turns into a beautiful swan like that. That's a thing that existsin our mythology and in real life. And there's some real misogyny problems herespecifically when it comes to, you know.

valuing a woman's worth and a woman'sappearance and an ugly daughter versus an ugly son and all of this other stuff.You know, I don't want to get into that. I'm super I'm I am very uncomfortablewith like the underlying, you know, misogyny and worse that kind of undergirdsviewing your wife's pre surgery appearance as a disqualifying factor as if heronly job in marrying you is to produce attractive offspring. Tons of superproblematic stuff here.

is relevant and is also a reason that I don'tthink that you should be awarding this person damages because he sounds kind oflike a scumbag. But I think the underlying principle of what it looks like tosue someone for fraud and what their duty to disclose is a little bitinteresting. I have so many issues. Yeah, my wife is blonde now, but I knowshe's truly a brunette. Right. Can I start suing her?

Like, let's go, you know, I want money. Didyou know she was a brunette before you married her? No, hell no. I've onlyknown her as a blonde, but I've seen pictures now, right? I've been defrauded.How do you say that word? Anyway. No, you said that right. And what if my wifebecame unattractive later in life? And this happens, right? They let themselvesgo, right? Now I'm suing because you were hot when we first started dating,right? Oh, and by the way, you used to put out.

And now we don't. Right. We went from fourtimes a week to four times a year. This opens a whole whole can of wormsbetween marriages and spouses. I'm not into it. No case. I am super not intoit. I have been in the process of letting myself go for decades now. I'm deeplycommitted to that specific act. No, I mean, look, when we're talking aboutfraud, nothing that happens after you get married is going to be fraud.

(11:49.23)

Right? Your wife didn't lie to you about thefuture. There's actually principles in contract law, right? That, you know,fraud has to be some, something, some statement about something that happenedin the past or the present, your present intent. Now, if you married someonewith the intention of man, as soon as we get married, like I am going to chopall my hair off and do X and Y and Z, like you could argue that lying aboutthat intent, right, becomes fraud. But things that happen later,

are not going to be fraud, butmisrepresentations about the past are. Where this may theoretically swing, justhear me out on it, right? Let's say you ask your wife before you got engaged orbefore you got married, hey, is blonde your natural hair color? And your wifesays, yes. And that's a lie. And you later determine that it's a lie. But youask that specific question before you got married. Does that change youranalysis as to whether there's some actionable fraud here?

something as superficial as dyeing your hair.No, I understand that. However, yes. I mean, if she was like a, maybe aconvicted prostitute, right. And I asked her, Hey, have you ever sold your bodyfor sex? Right. And then later I discovered she did. That's a problem. Letback. Right. Look, up to you if you want to get yourself canceled on that ornot. Right.

We are very sex positive now sex work is realwork and if you stigmatize sex work, you know the you could draw the ire So Igive you the chance to I give you the chance to pick some other I reach Isupport the hookers. I'm just saying from a health perspective I need to bemade aware of that period Well, so I have seen examples and these were in thearea of annulment cases as opposed to suits for damages, right where there wasdiscussion about

medical history or psychological history,right? Where someone before they get married asks about, you know, your healthbackground and the person lies. And then they later on are seeking an annulmentsaying, look, I would have never married you if I knew about condition X, Y orZ implicitly, because it was only a rule saying, hey, the medical records werediscoverable. But implicitly, the courts have indicated that, you know, thatcould possibly at least make out a viable case.

(14:08.686)

for fraud such that it triggers an annulmentas opposed to a divorce, not necessarily that damages would be awarded. I thinkhere's a situation that is a bit more realistic and will touch upon all of yourfeelings as fathers. What if before the marriage, your wife said, yes, I wantto have children. And then after the marriage, changed her mind and said, no, Inever want to have children. And you still wanted to have a family. Yeah, letme tweak that a little bit.

If she changed her mind, she's allowed tochange her mind. You may find someone who's willing to support a divorce inthat situation, but it's not going to be a ground for an annulment and it's notgoing to be a ground for a lawsuit. You can't sue your wife for changing hermind. She's allowed to change her mind. But if she said to you in the firstplace, yes, I want to have kids, but secretly, you know, either she couldn'tor, and specifically did not want to and knew that she either couldn't or didnot want to, right? She knew at the outset when you asked her the question.

you know, do you want to have kids? And sheknew you wanted to hear yes, even though her answer was no. And she said yesanyway, you could make out a grounds for an annulment on that case, becauseobviously this is the sort of fact someone might choose to rely upon. Probablyshouldn't, at least in and of and by itself, but you know, it depends howvoluntary or involuntary that is. The important factor here to be grounds foran annulment, as I understand it, is it has to be a misrepresentation madeprior to marriage that was false at the time it was set.

And if you did that and you reasonably reliedupon it, it looks like from a family law perspective, you can seek an annulmentas opposed to a divorce, whatever the consequences of that distinction may ormay not be. So you'd have to find some sort of medical records or somethingthat showed that she was medically unable to have children before you gotmarried and when she had agreed to have children. Some demonstrable fact inthat regard, yeah. And the other thing to think about, you know, even if that getsyou an annulment,

My position is it doesn't or shouldn't be ableto give you a suit for damages unless you talk about some other specific actthat you took apart from or in addition to the marriage, right? You know, sotheoretically, right, let's say that based on that misrepresentation, you spent$50 ,000 on the wedding itself and then you married her. And then you find outsoon enough that the statute hasn't passed.

(16:31.278)

And so now, in addition to seeking anannulment in kind of a family law perspective, you can theoretically at leastarticulate a fraud -based claim for the damages on like the actual cost of thewedding itself. I would have never married you and I would not have spent $50,000 on this wedding if you did not lie to me about whether or not you wantedto have kids. That's a case that I can imagine being somewhat plausible.

fraught in a bunch of obvious ways, but notcompletely dismissible out of hand, kind of hearing it the first time through,which is about the best you're going to get out of me on any of this. Like sueyour spouse for fraud is okay. Like, you know, you might survive preliminaryobjections. You might get a judge to hear a little more about your case. Youknow, have you seen any, you know, any cases in your practice or in the news orwhatever that, that kind of talk about the question of whether or not.

Like a spouse can sue another spouse forfraud. Can a spouse sue another spouse for fraud? I think yes. If it's amaterial misrepresentation that actually causes some type of financial harm.But if it's subjective on how good our children look, then no, but they're notgreat cases and I'm not taking them. No, that's that's right. You'd have tocome up with some really unique facts for me to be willing to throw my my hatin the ring on the side of suing your spouse for fraud.

Even if the conduct's pretty bad, right? LikeI just don't view I don't view the marriage contract itself. Contract. I'm airquoting that just so you can see it. I don't view the marriage contract itselfas something that is subject to the same fraud analysis as every other kind ofcontract. And then once you've gotten past that, I'm not all that into mostoccasions of suing your spouse for other stuff because you're already married.I recall seeing a case where a spouse did sue.

based on failure to disclose HIV. And I can'trecall whether or not it was passed to the child or not. But the court in thatcase did look at that as a material misrepresentation. And you've heard ofcases where people sleep with someone they're unmarried to, where they neededto disclose an STD or what have you. But not great cases. Well, I might bewilling to make a distinction here too between. So in the world of fraud andfraud in the inducement generally, there is a difference between.

(18:55.566)

intentional, like intentional explicitmisrepresentations, false statements that you make, and misrepresentation byomission, right? So it's one thing to specifically lie to someone, and it's adifferent thing to not disclose a fact when under the circumstances, I would beunder a duty to disclose. So for example, I might feel differently about if Iasked my spouse, hey, do you have HIV or some disease and they lie to me aboutthe answer, I feel

way stronger about that case, if I'm talkingabout potentially taking it or ruling on it as a juror, than I do about, well,they never mentioned it. And under the circumstances, a normal person wouldrecognize, hey, if I've got HIV, I kind of need to tell my spouse that before Imarry them. Not from a moral perspective, I would agree that you should tellthem, but legally, I'm not really comfortable coming up with what the list ofthings that you should and should not have enough.

affirmative duty to disclose, right? In realestate contracts, we talk about seller disclosures, right? You're required totell the person who's buying your house about certain kinds of things in theproperty history that you're aware of. There is no similar list for marriage. Idon't want there to be a similar list for marriage. So I would definitely, youknow, I think it might change if for example, the husband in the ugly baby caseasked his wife, did you ever have any cosmetic procedures done? And she saidno.

you know, I might feel a little bitdifferently about that than I do if she just never told me and I felt like Iwas entitled to that information before we got married. All right, let's put abow on this one too, right? I think I see where we all are already, but allright, ugly baby husband, case or no case, Noah. No case, no case.

Ron. No case. Way too subjective. ProducerMike. This one makes me very sad. There should be no case here. He's being soincredibly shallow. And where's the love for his own child? To have this babybe the ugly baby for the rest of its life, I think is incredibly cool. Heshould be sued for that. Yeah, make that unanimous. This is no case. And yet,apparently,

(21:07.854)

apparently, with admittedly scant knowledge,but from the from the place where I read the little blurb about this case, itlooks like he may have in fact won the case, and that his wife was made to payhim more than $120 ,000. Now, I don't know the theory, I don't know thedamages, I don't even know if that's actually true. But running through thefactual scenario we've got, I don't think this is a case. And I do I feel Ifeel awful that, you know, for the rest of this child's life, like your dadthought you were so ugly that he sued your mom for $120 ,000 is just

awful, just terrible stuff.

(22:05.678)

rate and review. Share it on social media.That's the thing, right? If you have any questions for our mail -in segment orany feedback for the pod whatsoever, email us. That's at iobject at pghfirm.com. That's like Pittsburgh and law firm, right? pghfirm .com. We are onInstagram at iStrenuouslyObject podcast. And for more information on any legalmatters, specifically medical malpractice, personal injury, if you've beeninjured, if you're wondering if you should sue,

Go on our website, that's Flaherty Fardo'swebsite, at pghfirm .com. And until next time, some parting advice. Boy, alittle too much chlorine in that gene pool. And you know the thing is, they'llnever know. No one's ever gonna tell them. Oh, you have to lie. Oh, it's a must-lie situation. Yeah.

‍