What Can You Sue Your Ex-Spouse For?

Grounds for Suing an Ex-Spouse or Ex-Partner

Can you Sue Your Ex for Emotional Distress?
In North Carolina, you may be able to sue your ex-spouse for intentional infliction of emotional distress or negligent infliction of emotional distress. To successfully claim intentional infliction of emotional distress (IIED) under North Carolina law requires proof of three elements:

• Your ex-spouse engaged in extreme and outrageous conduct that went beyond all bounds of decency
• Your ex-spouse intended to cause you severe emotional distress or acted with reckless disregard and
• You suffered emotional distress as a direct result.

Ordinary insults or rude behavior is not enough for IIED. Your ex-spouse’s conduct must be considered atrocious and intolerable by society. Domestic violence, kidnapping, rape, or plausible threats of violence are examples of IIED.

To successfully claim negligent infliction of emotional distress (NIED) under North Carolina law requires proof of three elements:

• Your ex-spouse acted negligently;
• It was reasonably foreseeable that such negligence would cause severe emotional distress and
• You suffered severe emotional distress as a result.

Unlike intentional infliction, negligent infliction does not require an intent to cause distress; it only requires that the severe distress was a reasonably foreseeable result of the negligent conduct.

Can You Sue Your Ex for Financial Abuse?
In North Carolina, you may be able to sue your ex-spouse for financial abuse. Financial abuse is a form of domestic abuse involving the unreasonable deprivation or exploitation of economic resources.

To successfully sue your ex-spouse for financial abuse, you would generally need to prove the following elements:

• Intentional Abusive Conduct: Intentionally engaging in behavior that unreasonably deprived you of economic resources or made you financially dependent on them.
• Financial Harm: The abusive conduct caused you substantial financial harm or made it difficult to be self-sufficient.
• Quantifiable Damages: These include lost wages, debt, inability to meet expenses, etc.

Can You Sue Your Ex for False Allegations?
In North Carolina, you can sue your ex-spouse for making false allegations against you. This offense is a tort and includes both libel (written defamation) and slander (spoken defamation).

To successfully sue your ex-spouse for defamation, you must prove the following elements:

• Your ex made false and defamatory statements about you;
• The statements were published to a third party, and
• The statements caused injury to your reputation.

If the false statements pertain to your profession or business, they are considered defamation per se, and North Carolina law recognizes these statements as inherently damaging, requiring no proof of actual damage to your reputation.

Can You Sue Your Ex for Money Owed?
In North Carolina, you can sue your ex-spouse for money owed if they fall behind on court-ordered alimony payments.

If you have a court order requiring your ex-spouse to pay you alimony, and they are not making the payments or falling behind, you have the legal right to file a motion to enforce the order.

An alimony order is enforceable by civil and criminal contempt proceedings against the non-paying spouse. The most common enforcement method is to file for civil contempt with the court that issued the alimony order.

Additionally, you can sue your ex-spouse for child support in North Carolina. You may seek child support through the courts, and there are provisions for enforcing and modifying child support orders.

The courts in North Carolina have the authority to enforce these child support orders and award retroactive child support if warranted. The courts have a broad scope of remedies available in child support cases, including the ability to award interest on past-due payments.

Can You Sue Your Ex for Alienation of Affection?
In North Carolina, if you file a lawsuit for alienation of affection, the defendant will be your ex-spouse’s lover, not your ex-spouse. Alienation of affection is a tort action brought against a third party who has interfered with the marital relationship, causing the loss of affection between you and your ex-spouse. The legal basis for this claim is that the third party deprived you of your spouse’s love, society, companionship, and comfort.