ABA Journal - Law News Now

Tort Law

N.Y. Woman Loses Suit Claiming Rabbi Counseled Her to Have Sex

Posted Jun 27, 2008, 09:32 am CDT
By Debra Cassens Weiss

New York’s top court has dismissed a lawsuit by a woman who alleged her rabbi counseled her to have sex with him.

The New York Court of Appeals in a unanimous opinion said plaintiff Adina Marmelstein had failed to establish a fiduciary relationship that had been breached, the New York Law Journal reports.

Marmelstein had said she asked the rabbi, Mordecai Tendler, to counsel her on personal matters, including her problems finding a husband. She alleged that Tender told her to have sex with him so that her "life will open up and men will come to her."

The court said Marmelstein had "only shown that she was deceived by Tendler, not that she was so vulnerable as to surrender her will and capacity to determine her own best interests.” Without such a showing, a voluntary affair between consenting adults cannot support a lawsuit, according to the decision.

• Comments: 1
• E-mail / Share
• Permalink
• Print

Subscribe

Get the ABA Journal the way you want it — in print, online, by e-mail — and when you want it — monthly, weekly, daily or as news breaks.

Subscribe via RSS
Subscribe to the mobile edition
Subscribe to the monthly magazine