The Price of a Broken Heart: A Seattle Breach-of-Promise Suit
A jilted lover demands thousands in damages from the father of his former fiancée, itemizing every box of candy, carriage ride, and theater ticket he purchased during their courtship.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Charles Lisecky, a local resident of Seattle, has filed suit in the superior court for $3,000 against a well-to-do father, the father of a young lady in Seattle. Lisecky claims that he was engaged to the young lady, and throughout their courtship, he spent heavily to win her hand. He claims that the father interfered, causing the young lady to spurn him. Lisecky, heartbroken and distressed, decided that if he could not have her, he would at least be reimbursed for the $3,000 he claims to have spent on her. In his bill of particulars, filed in the court's office, he lists the items: candy ($150), a pair of bracelets ($100), a necklace ($125), theater tickets ($150), and one hundred and forty carriage rides ($420). The father maintains he knew nothing of his daughter's love affairs and insists she is free to marry whom she chooses, labeling the suit a 'farcical piece of business.' Lisecky insists the matter be tried in the courts.
“He makes it a farcical piece of business all through. If the plaintiff is in need of money he will donate him $1,000 to provide for his wants, but will not pay over any damages.”
This 1887 suit highlights a era when breach-of-promise litigation was a common—if often ridiculed—recourse for men seeking to recover the 'investment' of a failed courtship. While modern family law has moved far beyond treating romance as a financial contract, the public scandal of the case reflects the same obsession with private lives and transactional relationships that drives modern social media 'call-out' culture.
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