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While I do not like MKC's snarky rebuttal, I have to agree that you seem to be doing a reverse-karen: "This poor guy got screwed because all the ladies were on Team Woman and too stupid or emotional to consider evidence." But the evidence is that this guy is dumb, irresponsible, and basically handed over his paycheck to his girlfriend to run his life, was terrible with money, the relationship imploded predictably (after they had two children!) and guess what, he's now responsible for the aftermath of that. We could quibble over the specific dollar amounts she should or should not be entitled to, but yeah, the case really was quibbling over how much he owed. Like, my dude, you have two kids with a woman you couldn't be bothered to marry to hook up with almost-free medical coverage? Yeah, that's gonna cost you. On deployment, you go out and drink like a sailor (because, duh) and ask her to pay for your bar tabs? Yeah, you're gonna owe her for that.
Agreed that fraud should not have entered the discussion, and it sounds like Chad's lawyer was terrible (are we surprised that Chad is as good at picking lawyers as he is at picking baby-mommas?), and I don't doubt the chicks were biased, but you have to be pretty much on Team Pump-And-Dump-The-Bitches-Deserve-It to think Chad should have escaped responsibility here.
Yes, Chad needed to get a bill. It does sound like the $22k she helped herself to ought to be deducted and the karens on the jury weren't willing to consider that?
More to the point, this is a real ESH. Chad is an irresponsible manchild degenerate. Becky, uh, should've known this going in- it doesn't sound like he's hiding anything.
I'm currently considering suing a certain company for fraudulent inducement and was astonished when my attorney told me their likely defense would be that I should have known better than to trust them in the first place. Apparently that's a real defense that works.
This might make me sound more dumb than I am; the context is that I kept providing services to them as they got later and later on payment. I didn't buy a bridge or anything.
So the idea is that given their track record of not paying on time or in some cases at all, it's on me for continuing to move forward in good faith no matter how many new agreements we signed.
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For every action I guess there must be an equal and opposite reaction. The rise of the Male-Karen is upon us. Woe be to non-men! I'll take that into consideration. To be clear I did not like the defendant at all. Morally I think he should have to pay 100%. Legally though, I think the plaintiff really failed to demonstrate that she never took money from his account to make herself whole, and that the relationship was setup in such a way that it was transactional, so that every payment she made was part of an implied contact.
The legal charges were:
BoC pretty much requires and offer, acceptance, and mutual agreement on terms. There was not a lot of offering being made, and it was not an implied contract. UE, requires that the plaintiff expect to paid back at the time of the payments, it was very unclear. Fraud required deceit which was never even demonstrated.
Notably they were also in child court for much of the other stuff, she was also just concurrently suing him in civil court for what appeared to be a vindictive last attempt at controlling him. That's why my stance is that she was entitled to 35k - 22k = 12k roughly. That's not escaping responsibility but its not also punishing him for her equally bad decisions.
Breach of Contract in this context sounds like the old-fashioned breach of promise, which seems to have been done away with as a civil offence. Becky seems to have been getting cold feet (rather too late into the relationship) but it was Chad who dumped her, after promising marriage, going ring-shopping, and entering into a lease for a house with her.
Unjust Enrichment doesn't seem to apply here, but IANAL.
Fraud - well, I guess does "pay my fees for the divorce, baby" on the implicit understanding this clears the legal path to marriage count as fraud, if he ends up not marrying her and not repaying the fees? Then again, did she take the money for this out of his account in the $22 grand withdrawals? Tough job trying to parse this one out, with the entangled finances and Chad handing over control of his money to Becky in the first place.
Weeeeelll... guy has demonstrated he has the sense of personal responsibility and reliability of a wet paper bag, so was that a vindictive last attempt at controlling him or last resort to get the damn finances sorted out, you bastard, after you stiffed me on the lease penalties?
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