Woman sues phone company for exposing her affair. Would you vote to give her money?

[FLPanhandle]

A Toronto woman says the billing practices of Rogers Wireless Inc. led to her husband discovering her extramarital affair.

Now the woman, whose husband walked out, is suing the communications giant for $600,000 for alleged invasion of privacy and breach of contract, the results of which she says have ruined her life.

In 2007, Gabriella Nagy had a cellphone account with Rogers which sent the monthly bill to her home address in her maiden name. Her husband was the account holder for the family's cable TV service at the same address. Around June 4, 2007, he called Rogers to add internet and home phone.

The following month, Rogers mailed a “global” invoice for all of its services to the matrimonial home that included an itemized bill for Nagy's cellular service, according to the statement of claim filed in Ontario Superior Court of Justice.

When Nagy’s husband opened the Rogers invoice, he saw several hour-long phone calls to a single phone number.


http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/crime/article/810236--toronto-woman-sues-rogers-after-her-affair-is-exposed?bn=1


I wouldn't.

[Liberal_in_LA]

1. lol n/t

[Liberal_in_LA]

2. lol n/t

[BrklynLiberal]

3. Does one usually get rewarded for being stupid AND unfaithful???

[WinkyDink]

8. What has your question got to do with her business contract?

[WinkyDink]

4. The issue is not the affair; the issue is the company's refusing to regard her as an autonomous cus-

tomer, PER HER VERY OWN, NON-WIFELY-CHATTEL CONTRACT.

PERIOD.

[Donnachaidh]

38. even *if* the company was in the wrong - she shouldn't get a penny

Give her free phone service for a year. But half a mil? Because they inadvertently outed her infidelity? Oh HELL no...

The lawsuit alone makes her look even more like a moneygrubbing weasel. Aww poor baby, the moneytrain has left the station....

[struggle4progress]

42. ... Rogers has denied all the allegations, saying it was notified by Nagy and her husband that they

wanted a single bill for all their services ...

Toronto woman sues Rogers for exposing her affair
By Linda Nguyen, Canwest News Service May 17, 2010
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Toronto+woman+sues+Rogers+Wireless+after+getting+caught+cheating/3038881/story.html#ixzz0oK3tQHCrhttp://www.vancouversun.com/news/Toronto+woman+sues+Rogers+Wireless+after+getting+caught+cheating/3038881/story.html#ixzz0oK3chx00

[one-eyed fat man]

5. Not a penny! NT

[napi21]

6. Sorry honey. If you're going to cheat, you really need to cover all

possible bases. A nice prepaid cell would have been a great addition to your possessions!

[yellowcanine]

7. No, if she used her home address she is the one who screwed up.

She should have rented a post office box.

[EFerrari]

11. How did she screw up? The account was in HER name.

[FLPanhandle]

13. with her and her husbands common address

The invoice was for household services.

[EFerrari]

25. But her account was hers, not "household services".

[dflprincess]

39. Roommates have common addresses

that doesn't mean their bills should be combined.

[yellowcanine]

20. She screwed up because she made it easy for the company to screw up.

If your going to practice deception you better make sure you are good at it. And using the same address as the person you are trying to deceive - well that is just stupid.

[EFerrari]

26. The "screw up" wasn't hers. She has a reasonable expectation

of privacy. That the company screwed up is on them and I hope she wins.

[FLPanhandle]

34. The screw up was all hers

She lost her marriage over it and that's entirely her fault. She lost her job over it because she couldn't handle the loss of her marriage due to her cheating which was also her fault. Perhaps she should have thought of all of this before she started porking another dude who had a family of his own. Ya think? In any event, she is NOT the "victim" here.

[EFerrari]

9. The affair is beside the point. They sent her mail to someone else.

Yeah, I'd have a problem with that.

[WinkyDink]

10. Are women not allowed their own private business transactions? Suppose it was just some jewelry

she charged on her own card; why should the CC company mail the bill in her husband's name, "for efficiency"?

[FLPanhandle]

14. It was a invoice for all household services

If she wanted to get away with an affair, she was pretty stupid to use her family's address vs. a PO box.

[EFerrari]

27. How is a cell phone a "household service" and when did she give them permission

to bundle the bills?

[FLPanhandle]

32. She didn't

The company admitted that. However, does she deserve to be compensated for her husband leaving her due to her affair?

She might deserve compensation for release of private information, but the loss of her marriage and job are all on her own cheating ways.

[catbyte]

16. The problem is having the bill sent to their house.

Boneheaded move. Just because the account is in her maiden name doesn't mean diddly--especially when she has other services from the same company jointly with her spouse. Unless she specifically stated that it was a private account, she's toast. I kept my name when I got married, so our cable bill was in both names.

She was stupid--the pre-paid cell was the way to go if she wanted to be devious.

Boo freaking hoo.

[Lance_Boyle]

30. Do they have joint credit? If so it's his jewelry, too.

You do realize that the bundling packages exist SOLELY for this sort of efficiency, right?

[uponit7771]

12. This dingbat used her home address, what did she expect?!

[The_Commonist]

15. Not in a million years.

Although there may be something to the breach of contract.

[damntexdem]

17. Yes. She had a right to the privacy of her billing.

As despicable as her marital actions were, she still had the right to not have her privacy violated by the phone company.

[EFerrari]

29. How do you know that her actions were despicable?

I know it is received wisdom here at DU that all affairs are bad but we weren't in that marriage or in that affair and we don't know what the stakes were.

[cbdo2007]

18. If they were following standard billing procedure - which it appears they were -

then they will be fine and she won't get any money.

If they purposely saw suspicious activity on the phone line and wanted to notify the husband just in case his wife may have been having an affair - then the cheater woman should win. That is invasion of privacy.

In order for the woman to win this case she would have to prove that they purposely were trying to do damage to her, and they weren't, obviously because they can't possibly watch everyone's phones to look for suspicous calls by one spouse or the other.

[gratuitous]

19. I'd award her a buck

Which is probably overpaying her for the value she placed on her own marriage, but I'm feeling extravagant today.

[Dr. Strange]

37. I'd agree with that.

Her life wasn't ruined by the company--it was ruined by her actions.

[notadmblnd]

21. Yes, her personal phone is her personal phone and they had no right

And they should have gotten her authorization before making any changes to her service. If her husband requested his cable service to provide phone service too, he should have gotten a new number.

My accounts are my accounts and no one has the right to make changes to them without my authorization. She should be able to sue for that.

[proteus_lives]

22. Not a dime.

[sandnsea]

23. women fought for autonomous finances for decades

She probably shouldn't receive compensation for the ruined life due to the affair, but she should receive whatever compensation she would have if they'd done this and there were no extenuating consequences. It's illegal, plain and simple.

[lumberjack_jeff]

24. Absolutely. Then I'd give it to the husband in the divorce. n/t

[underseasurveyor]

28. No way not a penny

If she had simply protected her own 'maiden name identity' with a PO box or a pre-paid this wouldn't be an issue for her. The heavier burden is on her IMHO.

And using her home address, DOH:dunce:

[Lagomorph]

31. Oh HELL No!

That's absolutely ridiculous!

[katandmoon]

33. Yep.

[Xithras]

35. A couple of important points here...

1. Ontario, like many U.S. states, has Community Property laws. What's his is hers, and what's hers is his. Here in California, which is also a Community Property state, spouses have full access to all information, accounts, and services held by their significant others, with narrow exceptions for federally protected information like medical records (and even that can be accessed by a spouse if the record-owner is incapacitated). If the husband wanted to see the bill, he probably had a legal right to do so. If he wanted to combine the bills, he was probably legally authorized to make that request. The fact that she used her maiden name doesn't exempt her from Community Property law. Many people mistakenly assume that Community Property laws only govern the division of assets during a divorce, but they also cover the ownership of assets during a marriage (I know someone who found this out first hand when his wife sold his motorcycle while he was at work, even though it was in his name only). A subscribed service is a marital asset. It's owned by both spouses.
   


2. I strongly suspect that the husband knew that something was going on anyway. Normal husbands don't peruse their wifes phone bills and start cold calling numbers just to see who answers. Typically, when a husband or wife gets to the point of perusing phone bills, they already know that something is going on and are just looking for confirmation.
   


3. If you're going to have an affair, be smart enough to use a prepaid phone, and to not connect anything back to your home address. This lady wasn't caught because of what Rogers did, she was caught because she was an idiot who made almost no effort to hide what she was doing. I try not to judge people over their personal lives, and really don't care that she was sleeping with someone else, but she showed a real lack of common sense when it came to keeping it a secret. Even if it WAS in a separate bill, it still came to his house and he was just one letter opener away from finding it anyway. If I'm right on #1, he'd have found the numbers whether it was on a combined bill or not.

So, no, I wouldn't award her anything.

[unblock]

36. she might be immoral and stupid and not worthy of sympathy yet still be legally in the right

this is the sort of case where they find in favor of the plaintiff and award damages of one dollar.


i'm not an expert on canadian law, so she might not even have a case. from an ethical standpoint, it's not clear to me that it's proper to transfer HER phone billings to a global account in HIS name without HER consent, notwithstanding that they're married. in the u.s., credit card and medical billing companies are won't talk to the spouse without consent of the cardholder/patient.

she's clearing in the wrong ethically, but that doesn't mean rogers is in the right legally.

neither jury nor judge would have much sympathy for her, though, hence the expected judgement of only one dollar.

[struggle4progress]

40. I predict this case will be decided narrowly on the basis of details in the cellphone contract and

relevant state law. It sounds like an honest mistake by the cellphone company in an attempt to consolidate billing. I expect a court might find the company had breached its contract with her, and yet limit the damages to a symbolic $1, since the actual harm to the marriage was her own behavior and not bad faith or malice by the company

[Dappleganger]

41. No.

[RagAss]

43. Not spending my sympathy here.

[Fla_Democrat]

44. I'd giver her my phone number

she sounds like a playah. :evilgrin: