Abstract

While domestic abuse can manifest itself in many forms, one example of abuse within the divorce process is the denial of the religious divorce. In Jewish law, the parties must transact a bill of divorce (known as a get) before they are divorced. If a spouse refuses to cooperate with this process, they limit their former partner’s ability to date and remarry within the community, effectively maintaining coercive control post-divorce. This article will examine whether or not victims of get refusal would be able to recover monetary awards under the tort doctrine of Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress (IIED). This article will argue that while the facts of get refusal meet the central elements of the tort of IIED, these cases are unlikely to succeed in most states due to the court system’s reluctance to apply IIED to interspousal torts. The reasons behind this hesitation draw on the complex history of domestic abuse and tort law, and historical legal prioritizations of family privacy over abuse victims’ safety. Additionally, I will explore the history of the IIED tort as a vehicle for social change and examine how IIED can still play that role today. Ultimately, I will argue for the necessity of courts’ abandoning lasting vestiges of the marital privacy doctrine and providing redress to victims of this insidious form of domestic abuse.

中文翻译：

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拥有和持有：情绪困扰，离婚否认和配偶间侵权行为的政治

摘要

虽然家庭虐待可以多种形式表现出来，但离婚过程中虐待的一个例子是拒绝宗教离婚。在犹太法律中，当事方必须在离婚之前办理离婚手续（称为“获得” ）。如果配偶拒绝对此过程进行合作，则会限制其前伴侣在社区内约会和再婚的能力，从而有效地维持离婚后的强制控制。本文将分析的受害者是否获取拒绝就能够恢复情绪困扰的故意造成（IIED）的侵权原则下的金钱奖励。本文将论证，尽管get的事实拒绝符合IIED侵权行为的核心要素，由于法院系统不愿将IIED应用于配偶间侵权行为，这些案件在大多数州都不太可能成功。犹豫的原因在于家庭虐待和侵权法的复杂历史，以及历史上优先考虑的家庭隐私优先于虐待受害者的安全。此外，我将探讨IIED侵权行为作为推动社会变革的工具的历史，并探讨IIED在今天如何仍能发挥这种作用。最终，我将主张法院必须放弃婚姻隐私学说的持久痕迹，并为这种阴险的家庭虐待形式的受害者提供补救。