Also known as: marital interest · marital property interests
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
2 senses
Legally protected relational interests arising from marriage. These interests include affection, society, and consortium. Third parties who purposely interfere with them through alienation or compulsion incur liability for resulting harm.
Property rights that spouses acquire in each other's assets by virtue of marriage. These rights encompass dower, curtesy, and community property interests. They attach to estates such as fee tail and remain subject to preexisting limitations on the land.
Each sense below has its own examples, sources, and questions.
Legally protected relational interests arising from marriage. These interests include affection, society, and consortium. Third parties who purposely interfere with them through alienation or compulsion incur liability for resulting harm.
Select any source to read its text and confirm it supports the definition.
Mariam Mansour worked irregular hours as an on-air reporter. Her supervisor Miranda Morales began an affair and repeatedly disparaged Mariam's spouse Mina Mehta as dull. Morales then assigned Mariam exclusively to overnight and out-of-town broadcasts with her. Mariam grew distant, moved to a separate bedroom, and ceased sharing daily details with Mina. Mina sued Morales for harm to her protected marital interests.
Marcus Mitchell supervised Meredith Maxwell at a manufacturing plant. After beginning a relationship with Meredith, Marcus arranged her transfer to a distant facility. The company cancelled her return travel, placed her in controlled housing, and assigned escorts that blocked contact with her spouse Madison Meyers. Madison sued Marcus and the company for harm to his protected marital interests.
Purpose is shown by a pattern of disparagement combined with actions that monopolize the spouse's time and opportunities for contact. Courts examine whether the defendant deliberately exploited existing strains to draw the spouse away rather than merely taking advantage of an already faltering marriage.
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Preexisting strain does not automatically bar recovery. Liability attaches when the defendant's purposeful conduct intensifies the alienation and causes harm to protected interests beyond what would have occurred independently.
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Property rights that spouses acquire in each other's assets by virtue of marriage. These rights encompass dower, curtesy, and community property interests. They attach to estates such as fee tail and remain subject to preexisting limitations on the land.
Select any source to read its text and confirm it supports the definition.
Mosaic Retail held title to a car lot in fee tail with a remainder in a nephew and an executory interest in Meridian Motors if competing brands were sold. After the owner died, the surviving spouse claimed a marital interest in the lot. The nephew argued the spouse held nothing because the estate was a fee tail rather than fee simple. The spouse asserted a life interest measured as if the decedent had held fee simple, subject to the existing limitations.
The spouse receives a dower-type life estate measured as if the decedent had held fee simple. That interest remains subordinate to remainders, executory limitations, and reversions that already limited the fee tail and does not enlarge the underlying estate.
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No. The dower interest extends to the executory limitation itself. When the condition occurs and the future interest becomes possessory, the charity or other holder takes subject to the spouse's life estate rather than free of it.
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…taxation rules." 511 U. S., at 239— 240 (emphasis added). See also Mitchell, supra , at 204 (holding that right to renounce a marital interest under state law does not indicate that the taxpayer had no right to property before the renunciation). Extending this Court's "state law fiction" jurisprudence to determine whether…
…property" that which was owned by Kevin at the time of the marriage, but it also sought "to reach into the future to prevent any
Employer actions such as cancelling return travel, controlling housing, and restricting movement satisfy the rule when taken at the direction of a supervisor to keep the spouse apart. Voluntary statements by the separated spouse may create a factual issue but do not automatically defeat liability if the restrictions effectively compelled separation.
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