North Carolina Man Awarded $8.8 Million After Another Man Destroyed His Marriage
A judge awarded a North Carolina man $8.8 million after another man slept with his wife while they were still married.
Keith King, the owner of a BMX bike stunt show company, received an award of $2.2 million in compensatory damages plus three times that amount in punitive damages, according to a Herald Sun report. Francisco Huizar III of San Antonio, Texas, must pay out the $8.8 million to King for sleeping with King’s wife and destroying their marriage.
Not surprisingly, Huizar’s attorney, Cheri Patrick, plans to appeal the ruling by Superior Court Judge Orlando Hudson. According to Patrick, the Kings marriage sustained damage before Huizar entered the scene.
King filed the civil complaint in April 2017. According to a CBS News report, the lawsuit claimed that Huizar committed criminal conversation, alienation of affection, intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligent infliction of emotional distress, and assault and battery by sleeping with King’s wife while they were still married and not separated.
Keith and Danielle King married on April 3, 2010, and they have a 5-year-old daughter. As a result of Danielle King’s affair with Huizar and an assault, King’s business, BMX Stunt Shows, lost money and an employee. Danielle King worked for her husband’s company and stopped working there after the affair. Not only that, King had to pay childcare costs, counseling costs, and house care costs directly resulting from the situation between Danielle King and Huizar.
A judge says a Texas man's affair with a North Carolina man's wife should cost him nearly $9 million. Superior Court Judge Orlando Hudson awarded Keith King $8.8 million in compensatory and punitive damages Thursday from Francisco Huizar III. https://t.co/PNtHAlGndF
— CBS Mornings (@CBSMornings) July 30, 2018
According to King, BMX Stunt Shows revenue went from $400,000 in 2015 to $125,000 in 2017, and he blamed Huizar for that significant revenue reduction.
The reason King was able to file the lawsuit is that an obscure law in North Carolina allows wronged spouses to sue for criminal conversation if such conversations lead to sex with a married person. Plus, the state also allows such spouses to sue for alienation of affection when the behavior leads to the destruction of “genuine love and affection.”
While $8.8 million seems like a colossal judgment, other cases like this one have led to even larger settlements. For instance, a 2011 Wake County case resulted in a massive $30 million fine.
Ultimately, the judge, in this case, said that the way that Danielle King ended her marriage to her husband was a “textbook case” on how not to end a marriage in North Carolina and other states that allow these types of lawsuits for affairs that lead to the dissolution of a marriage. There’s no word on if Danielle King and Francisco Huizar III are still together at this time.
“What I’ve endured, I’ve compared it to a nuclear bomb going on around my surroundings,” King said.
