Who Gets Fake Boobs After a Divorce?
The man from Richmond, Virginia recovered $20,000 from his ex-wife, recalling the cost of breast augmentation that he paid for before marriage
“It is a common thing when the spouses divide the car/s, business, real estate, or even dogs acquired in marriage. But in my practice, the plaintiff wanted to obtain the cost of surgery correcting the breast, lips, and cheekbones of his ex-wife,” says a Virginia divorce attorney Matthew S. Morris. He tells: “Seeing this in the lawsuit, I smiled. I really wondered how to establish the market value of these intimate parts, the degree of wear and tear, as well as how to determine which of the parties actually used it more often…”
In fact, such lawsuits are not so rare as it can seem. Although there is not enough case law yet, plastic surgery is a huge industry now, and about 16 million of similar procedures have already been conducted in the USA, not to mention cosmetic facial correction injections. The cases when husbands pay for the wifes’ correction procedures (or even insist on the surgery themselves) are quite often. At the same time, according to the recent surveys, over 35% of women have undergone plastic surgery leave their spouses in the first year after the miraculous transformation.
Is it any wonder that a husband (who, moreover, may be forced to pay child support, alimony, and share the property acquired during marriage) may feel deceived and want a kind of revenge?
So back to the case.
As follows from the case, the couple were in a romantic relationship since 2013. In 2014, when a man was forced to undergo rhinoplasty (nose correction) surgery, the girl asked to take her with him. In the clinic, she visited a free consultation, and while waiting for her boyfriend, she increased her lips and then decided to have a breast augmentation surgery and cheekbones correction. She asked for money from her lover. He took a receipt from the girlfriend that a loan agreement was concluded between them for two years in the amount of $10,000 at 50% per annum. The girl took this contract rather as a guarantee that after the procedures, she would not leave him – not as a serious agreement. To the standard text of the receipt, she added a hot declaration of love towards her lender…
Later, the couple was married, they had a son. However, in August 2018, the marriage broke up. The husband filed for divorce, stating that he had caught his wife cheating. After the dissolution of the marriage, he filed a lawsuit against his former wife, indicating that she had not yet returned the money for the surgery. And he demanded to recover from her $10,000 of debt and $10,000 at interest.
Actually, Virginia courts are not eligible to return to the abandoned husbands their investments in wifes’ beauty, no matter if there are more and more similar requests to the court every year.
Yes, you cannot “grab with you” that new set of breasts. In legal terms, breasts, lips, buns, etc. are considered as an unsecured asset.
Lack of case law affects. So, concerning the equitable division of the common property, such expenses do not change anything too.
But this client of Matthew S. Morris was more prudent than other plaintiffs who found themselves in a similar situation!
As the ex-spouse told the court, after the wedding, she asked the plaintiff about the receipt, and he replied that she was no more. Therefore, the woman believed that the money for the operation was eventually given to her as a gift. The ex-spouse denied this testimony anyway. All this was only in words.
At last, it turned out, that any official written agreement even supplemented with racy details and compliments, has its force. Taking into account the receipt, the court sided with the plaintiff and charged 10,000 dollars from the respondent. At the same time, the judge indicated that the plaintiff made demands for the return of the debt only after the dissolution of the marriage, despite the fact that the repayment period expired in January 2016. Having detected in the husband’s actions abuse of right, the court charged interest at the rate of 50% per annum for the term of the contract. Anyway, in total, the respondent owed $20,000.Although in Virginia, there is a fault ground for divorce “Adultery,” contesting the case under this cause would be quite complicated and, most likely, less profitable for the plaintiff. The hero of this incident knew that, so he just arranged a low cost and quick divorce with the help of online divorce service, specialized in uncontested cases. And now, he just wins. Who knows, maybe this will be the first case law for further of similar Virginia disputes.