Suits for breach of promise reflected this evolution. American states have always varied widely in their treatment of such suits, but on the whole, state courts became more receptive to large settlements for breach of promise as the nineteenth century wore on, then reversed direction during the twentieth century. Breach of promise suits, a mixture of contract and tort law, initially focused on monetary compensation for the financial injuries of a broken engagement, including the loss of virginity. Plaintiffs—typically female—increasingly claimed a wider range of damages, including loss of reputation, injury to health and feelings, and mental suffering.[27] During the early twentieth century signs of division arose between judges and juries on this very issue. While juries continued to make large awards for emotional and reputational damage, lawyers and judges began to look askance at these forms of compensation.
Evelyn Garmong eventually lost her suit for breach of promise against John B. Henderson as a consequence of such a shift (Gar — mong v. Henderson, 99 A. 177 (Me. 1916)). Garmong dropped out of medical school in 1908, when she was in her late twenties, and began working as a nurse in Washington, D. C. She met thirty-nine-year — old Henderson, a wealthy widower, in 1909. Over the following year, the two went out for automobile rides, dined together, and had sexual relations in Washington; Philadelphia; Bar Harbor, Maine; and elsewhere. In July 1910, Garmong, now living in her hometown of Des Moines, Iowa, resumed relations with a former lover, Roscoe D. Smith, to whom she was engaged. Three months later, she unsuccessfully sued Smith for seduction, then for breach of promise, aggravated by her pregnancy. Abandoning the effort to coerce Smith in October of that year, she returned to Washington, where her child was born. She now charged Henderson with paternity. Henderson visited her, sent her fruits and flowers, and over the next five months gave her about $900 “to buy his peace” (179).
After Henderson refused any further contact, Garmong instituted and lost a bastardy suit against him. Then, in October 1913, she sued Henderson for breach of promise, alleging that in March of 1910 he had promised her marriage. Claiming that they were “affianced husband and wife,” Garmong asked for $250,000 in damages. Henderson countered that they were never engaged to be married but “merely friends.” In January 1915, a jury in Penobscot County, Maine, awarded Garmong $116,000, a huge sum at that time. After the verdict was set aside by the Law Court—claiming that the jury was “influenced by sympathy, passion, or prejudice”—a second jury in April 1916 awarded Garmong $75,000 (177, 180). Once again, a review court sent the case back to trial. Finally, on November 27, 1916, the Supreme Judicial Court of Maine ruled in favor of Henderson, the defendant in Garmong’s suit.
The case pivoted on Evelyn Garmong’s claim that she and Henderson had been legally engaged, making her eligible for compensation. She testified to that effect. In conformity with the increasing rigor of courts, J. Cornish, one of the presiding judges, rebutted her testimony with a series of observations, including the following:
• John P. Garmong, Evelyn’s brother and her sole new witness, could only report that Henderson had once spoken to him about her with “the highest respect.” The conversation was found to bear “no resemblance to the expected conversation between prospective brothers in law” (179). Nor did John report that conversation to other members of the family.
• No engagement was announced publicly.
• No one provided evidence that any friend or relative knew about the engagement.
• There was no engagement ring.
• There were no presents “as one would expect a person of the wealth of the defendant to shower upon his affianced wife.”
• There was “no public conduct from which an engagement could be inferred.”
• There was no evidence that the “alleged engagement was ever referred to by the defendant or by any third person in his presence.”
• Letters written by the defendant to the plaintiff were not those of “an affianced husband. They were infrequent in quantity and meaningless in quality.” (179-80)
The judge concluded that Garmong and Henderson had maintained an “illicit relation” quite distinct from both a legal engagement and a mere friendship. The court therefore overturned the juries’ initial generous awards.
In the 1930s, jilted women’s claims came under even more severe and widespread attack. Critics argued that compensation for reputation and emotional distress commercialized couples’ engagements and provided undue incentives for its exploitation by scheming women (Coombs 1989; McLaren 2002, chap. 7; Tushnet 1998). They thus once again invoked hostile worlds doctrines against an unwanted practice. The attack succeeded. Starting in 1935, a number of states passed the so-called heart-balm acts—statutes abolishing breach ofpromise suits, along with the related torts ofseduction, criminal conversation, and alienation of affections. (The trend continued; by 2003, thirty-nine states had abolished the alienation of affections tort).