Notorious affairs website Ashley Madison has been sued by a man whose wife left him for something she met on the affairs site.
Robert Schindler, 62, sued the site, its parent company, Avid Dating Life Inc, and his ex-wife’s new husband, Eleazar ‘Chay’ Montemayor for destroying their 13-year marriage.
According to the Charlotte Observer, Schindler sued the company and Montemayor for coming between him and his wife and “alienating and destroying” their love.
North Carolina, Schindler’s state, has alienation of affection/criminal conversation laws, which allows scorned spouses to file a lawsuit if a marriage fails because of a third party.
Schnidler claims that Ashley Madison and Montemayor alienated his wife, who then went on to have “criminal conversation” – a legal term for extramarital sex — with Montemayor.
Montemayor and Moore met on the infidelity site in 2007 and after divorcing their spouses, got married last October.
Noel Biderman, the founder of Ashley Madison and former lawyer, answered the claims in the Charlotte Observer, saying:
“Would the courts also hold a hotel room accountable? A cellphone operator if his wife called her lover on it? The car she drove?”
Schindler’s attorney, Christopher Johnson, does not accept Biderman’s argument, saying the companies he mentions have other purposes besides promoting unfaithfulness, unlike his site – whose motto is “Life is short. Have an affair.”
Schindler’s lawsuit has ample precedent in North Carolina.
The law was reformed in 2009, and now it is only possible to sue “natural persons”.
This aimed to protect employers from being sued under the alienation law, since affairs often begin in the workplace.
However, Johnson said that Ashley Madison could be still sued for thousands of dollars because Moore’s affair began in 2007 before the reform of the law.