| Martin v. Ziherl |
Supreme Court of Virginia Virginia state seal Source http://usa. ...
| | Decided January 14, 2005 | | Full case name: | Muguet S. Martin v. Kristopher Joseph Ziherl | | Citations: | 269 Va. 35; 607 S.E.2d 367; 2005 Va. LEXIS 7 | | Prior history: | Demurrer sustained, Richmond Circuit Court | | Subsequent history: | | | | Holding | | Plaintiff's lawsuit for the intentional transmission of herpes was not barred by the judicial rule against recovering for injuries suffered while engaging in illegal conduct, because Virginia's criminal prohibition against sexual intercourse between unmarried individuals violated the Fourteenth Amendment. Richmond Circuit Court reversed and remanded. | | Court membership | | Chief Justice Leroy Roundtree Hassell, Sr. | | Justices Lawrence L. Koontz, Jr., Cynthia D. Kinser, Donald W. Lemons, Elizabeth B. Lacy, Barbara Milano Keenan, G. Steven Agee | | | Case opinions | | Majority by: Lacy | | Joined by: Koontz, Kinser, Lemons, Keenan, Agee | | Concurrence by: Hassell (without separate opinion) | | | Laws applied | | U.S. Const. amend. XIV; Va. Code § 18.2-344 | Martin v. Ziherl, 607 S.E.2d 367 (Va. 2005), was a case decided by the Supreme Court of Virginia, which ruled that the Virginia criminal law against fornication was unconstitutional. The court's decision followed the 2003 ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court in Lawrence v. Texas that established the right of adults to engage in private, consensual sex. The Supreme Court of Virginia is one of the oldest continuous judicial bodies in the United States. ...
Official language(s) English Capital Richmond Largest city Virginia Beach Area - Total - Width - Length - % water - Latitude - Longitude Ranked 35th 110,862 km² 320 km 690 km 7. ...
Fornication refers disapprovingly to any sexual activity outside of the confines of marriage. ...
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Holding A Texas law prohibiting homosexual sodomy violated the liberty under the Fourteenth Amendment of adults to engage in private intimate conduct. ...
Background of the case
Muguet Martin and Kristopher Ziherl were an unmarried couple who had been in a sexually active relationship for two years when Martin's doctor diagnosed her with herpes. She then filed a lawsuit against Ziherl in the Richmond Circuit Court, alleging that he knew he was infected with herpes when they had unprotected sex, knew it was contagious, and failed to inform her. Her complaint claimed negligence, intentional battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress, for which she sought compensatory and punitive damages. Genera Subfamily Alphaherpesvirinae Simplexvirus Varicellovirus Mardivirus Iltovirus Subfamily Betaherpesvirinae Cytomegalovirus Muromegalovirus Roseolovirus Subfamily Gammaherpesvirinae Lymphocryptovirus Rhadinovirus Unassigned Ictalurivirus The Herpesviridae are a family of DNA viruses that cause diseases in humans and animals. ...
A lawsuit is a civil action brought before a court in which the party commencing the action, the plaintiff, seeks a legal remedy. ...
Nickname: River City Motto: Sic Itur Ad Astra Official website: http://www. ...
In general use, a complaint is an expression of displeasure, such as poor service at a store, or from a local government, for example. ...
In law, negligence is a type of tort or delict that can be either criminal or civil in nature. ...
At common law, battery is the tort of intentionally (or in Australia negligently) and voluntarily touching another person without lawful excuse or justification. ...
Intentional infliction of emotional distress (IIED) is a common law tort claim for intentional conduct that results in extreme emotional distress. ...
Punitive damages are damages awarded to a successful plaintiff in a civil action, over and above the amount of compensatory damages, to: punish the conduct of the civil defendant; deter the civil defendant from committing the invidious act again; and deter others from doing the same thing. ...
The Supreme Court of Virginia had ruled in Zysk v. Zysk, 387 S.E.2d 466 (Va. 1990), that plaintiffs could not recover damages for injuries suffered while participating in illegal conduct. As sex between unmarried persons was criminalized under Virginia's anti-fornication statute,1 Ziherl filed a demurrer in response to Martin's suit. Judge Theodore J. Markow rejected Martin's argument that the statute was no longer valid after Lawrence v. Texas, in which the U.S. Supreme Court struck a Texas law criminalizing homosexual sodomy as an infringement upon the liberty of adults to engage in private and consensual intimate conduct under the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Judge Markow instead believed the fornication prohibition satisfied the rational basis review that Lawrence ruled the Texas statute failed, because the fornication law was reasonably related to the legitimate government goals of protecting public health and encouraging marriage for procreation. Ziherl's demurrer was sustained, resulting in the dismissal of Martin's suit. She subsequently appealed to the Virginia Supreme Court. A plaintiff, also known as a claimant or complainant, is the party who initiates a lawsuit (also known as an action) before a court. ...
In common law civil procedure, a demurrer is a pleading by the defendant that contests the legal sufficiency of the complaint. ...
Official language(s) None. ...
Homosexuality is a sexual orientation characterized by esthetic attraction, romantic love, or sexual desire exclusively for another of the same sex. ...
Sodomy is a term of religious origin to characterise certain sexual acts. ...
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The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is one of the post-Civil War amendments and includes the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses. ...
Rational basis rest, in U.S. constitutional law, is the lowest level of scrutiny applied by courts deciding constitutional issues through judicial review. ...
On appeal, Ziherl argued that Martin lacked standing to challenge the constitutionality of the statute because she was under no threat of prosecution,2 and so invalidation would not impact her liberty but would only allow her to pursue her lawsuit against him. The court refused to consider this argument, however, because of the longstanding rule that it would not consider a standing argument that was not first made at the trial court level. In law, standing is the ability of a party to demonstrate to the court sufficient connection to and harm from the law or action challenged. ...
The Court's decision The Virginia Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the Virginia fornication law violated the Fourteenth Amendment.3 Because the conduct by which Martin was allegedly injured could not be considered illegal, Zysk did not apply and she could proceed with her suit against Ziherl in the Richmond Circuit Court. The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is one of the post-Civil War amendments and includes the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses. ...
Lawrence v. Texas was the sole foundation for the court's ruling, and so the majority of its opinion was an interpretation of that decision. The U.S. Supreme Court in Lawrence had stated that it was adopting the reasoning of Justice John Paul Stevens in his dissent to Bowers v. Hardwick, which Lawrence overruled. The Stevens rationale, as the Virginia Supreme Court presented it, was that "decisions by married or unmarried persons regarding their intimate physical relationship are elements of their personal relationships that are entitled to due process protection." The Virginia Supreme Court stated that sexual intercourse was clearly part of the personal relationship of an unmarried couple, and that criminalizing intercourse clearly infringed upon their constitutionally protected right to make intimate choices. Associate Justices of the United States Supreme Court are the members of that court other than the Chief Justice. ...
John Paul Stevens (born April 20, 1920) is an American jurist and the senior Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. ...
Holding A Georgia law prohibiting sodomy was valid because there was no constitutionally protected right to engage in homosexual sodomy. ...
It has been suggested that Sexual penetration be merged into this article or section. ...
Regarding Ziherl's argument that the statute served valid public interests, the court stated that in Lawrence, the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled that the Texas sodomy statute furthered "no legitimate state interest" that could justify infringing the right to intimate contact. The Virginia Supreme Court interpreted this to mean that all state interests must be insufficient to justify a prohibition on private, consensual sexual conduct, rather than only those advanced by Texas to support its statute in Lawrence. The court was careful to note that this did not pertain to laws involving minors, non-consensual or public sexual activity, or prostitution, all of which the Lawrence Court also distinguished. A sex worker in Germany. ...
The Virginia Supreme Court made no reference to any earlier decisions finding anti-fornication statutes unconstitutional, such as State of New Jersey v. Saunders, 381 A.2d 333 (N.J. 1977). Case law (precedential law) is the body of judge-made law and legal decisions that interprets prior case law, statutes and other legal authority -- including doctrinal writings by legal scholars such as the Corpus Juris Secundum, Halsburys Laws of England or the doctinal writings found in the Recueil Dalloz...
Notes - Note 1: Virginia Code § 18.2-344. Fornication. "Any person, not being married, who voluntarily shall have sexual intercourse with any other person, shall be guilty of fornication, punishable as a Class 4 misdemeanor." According to that classification, a violation of § 18.2-344 was punishable by a fine of up to $250. Va. Code § 18.2-11.
- Note 2: Though this was not explained in the court's opinion, the nearly 200 year-old law had not been enforced against consenting adults since the mid 19th century.
- Note 3: Chief Justice Hassell did not join the court's opinion, but he concurred in its judgment without writing a separate opinion.
Title page to the Code of 1819, formally titled The Revised Code of the Laws of Virginia The Code of Virginia is the statutory law of the U.S. state of Virginia, and consists of the codified legislation of the Virginia General Assembly. ...
See also The United States Supreme Court and various U.S. state courts have decided several cases regarding pornography, sexual activity, and reproductive rights. ...
Judicial review is the power of a court to review a law or an official act of a government employee or agent for constitutionality or for the violation of basic principles of justice. ...
To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ...
References - Full text of the court's decision at findlaw.com
- Virginia strikes down state fornication law by Joanna Grossman, FindLaw columnist. CNN.com, January 25, 2005.
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