Cause of Action Fraudulent Inducement to Marriage

I admittedly do not practice family law, but found the case Rosensweig v. Givens, ____N.Y.3d___(Sept. 17, 2009), to be particularly interesting. New York's highest court recognized a cause of action for fraudulent inducement to marriage.What happened? The husband while still married to someone else married plaintiff and induced her to buy a condo with the husband being the lender. The facts are a bit fuzzy. The Court of Appeals explained them this way:

In connection with the mortgage foreclosure action, defendant has alleged sufficient facts to warrant denial of plaintiff's pre-discovery motion for summary judgment, [*2]having asserted that plaintiff, an attorney who was then her paramour, secured the mortgage through fraud and overreaching and by exploiting a fiduciary relationship with her (see generally Matter of Grieff, 92 NY2d 341, 345 [1998]). She contends that, under the guise of buying her a condominium, he induced her to enter into a mortgage arrangement whereby he was the lender and she the borrower. Furthermore, plaintiff hired a friend to represent them both at the closing. Defendant claims that plaintiff paid all expenses related to the condominium and did not seek mortgage payments or any other contribution from plaintiff until three years later — after their marriage and defendant's subsequent discovery that plaintiff already had a wife and two children, rendering their marriage bigamous. Plaintiff then demanded payment, accelerated the loan and pursued foreclosure against defendant. We also conclude that defendant has stated a prima facie case of fraudulent inducement to marriage (see Blossom v Barrett, 37 NY 434 [1868]; see also, Tuck v Tuck, 14 NY2d 341, 344 [1964]).

Mitchell H. Rubinstein