AN ANTIQUE LAW SENDS TREMORS THROUGH MANY A HEART

Last week, when a North Carolina woman successfully sued her husband's lover for wrecking their marriage, it gave the current national recalculation of the costs of divorce a new bottom line. Lawyers have a word for it. They call these "heart-balm" cases, the heart being the injured party, the balm in this case a cool, soothing $1 million.

The melodrama was set in Burlington, N.C., a small town about 20 miles from Greensboro, where Dorothy Hutelmyer was twice president of the PTA, her husband Joseph coached baseball and ran Seaboard Underwriters, and Lynne Cox worked as his secretary. The Hutelmyers' was "a storybook marriage," says Dorothy's lawyer Jim Walker. "He wrote poetry to her, love songs."

But then, as a parade of witnesses testified, along came Lynne Cox, freshly divorced and newly reborn in makeup and contacts and short skirts. She was soon spending more time alone and on the road with her boss, and admits to having an affair with him. Thus were laid out the preconditions for an "alienation of affection" suit, a rare legal recourse for spurned spouses that only a handful of states still recognizes.

In order to prevail in court, a plaintiff needs to show that the marriage was perking along quite contentedly until a wanton intruder came along to wreck it. The complaint charges that Dorothy enjoyed the "love, society, companionship, support, affection, right of consortium and kindly offices" of Joseph until Cox "intentionally, wrongfully and unjustifiably and with malice alienated and destroyed a love and affection that previously existed..."

If the language sounds archaic, it matches the spirit of the law; such suits date back at least to 18th century common law, when wives were viewed as property, and stealing a wife was akin to cattle rustling. In this century, as women gained greater legal and financial independence, most states threw out their alienation of affection statutes; in only a few conservative states--including Missouri, Mississippi, North and South Carolina--have there been successful suits in recent years, and no verdict within memory anywhere close to last week's $1 million award. After a seven-day trial, the jury deliberated for just three hours before making its ruling. To Dorothy, who receives child support and is seeking alimony, the verdict is assurance "that people around this county are saying to me, 'You were right to stand up for yourself,' and saying to the other person, 'You were wrong in what you did, breaking up my family.'"

Cox, who is now Mrs. Hutelmyer herself--she married Joseph this year--says the jury merely chose to ignore her side of the story. She has never denied that she and Joseph had an affair; but the idea that he had been happily married before she came along is "ludicrous and absurd... The two of them had not had any physical relationship in over seven years. If my husband had not made love to me in seven years, I would think there was a problem."

Will Dorothy ever collect $1 million from her? "Are you kidding?" says Lynne. "I make $425 a month. I'm a full-time student. I clean an office building part time to have some pin money. Do you think she's going to get $1 million? I own no property. I have no savings." Nor does she have money to fight the ruling. "My attorney's fees are in excess of $14,000. I'd love to appeal, but there's nothing I can do."