Say It With Flowers And Pay For It In Divorce Court.

MayorBob.

Posted to Legal on Mon Aug 13, 2007 at 07:00:57 PM EST (promoted by Acefantastik). RSS.

Leroy Greer just wanted to express his love for his girlfriend.  So he called 1-800-flowers in April and ordered a dozen red roses for her.  He hadn't reckoned on the teleflorist's customer appreciation policy -- they sent a thank you note to his home, offering him a discount on future purchases.  Big oops, because the note was delivered to his wife who was in the process of divorcing Mr. Greer.  She also hadn't realized Mr. Greer had a girlfriend.  So, Mr. Greer filed a lawsuit against 1-800-flowers claiming it gave his wife all the proof she needed to make the divorce that much more costly to him.

The complaint (pdf doc) claims 1-800-flowers "misrepresentation damaged Plaintiff by leading to a contested divorce with his wife."  When Bernice Greer filed for divorce in 2006 she only claimed "insupportability" as the cause for the break up.  The filing said that she and he would "enter into an agreement with regard to the division of the community property."  However, when Mrs. Greer got the thank you note from 1-800-flowers, she contacted the company and got the hot skinny on what the flowers were all about.  This changed everything because, under Texas law, "the court may grant a divorce in favor of one spouse if the other spouse has committed adultery."  And it doesn't matter if the adultery occurs before or after the separation.  Texas is one of 30 states which allow one spouse to file claiming the divorce was the fault of the other partner.

Greer claims he had asked the customer service agent not to send anything to his home address and he was pointed to the company's privacy policy on their web site.  Greer contends the thank you note is going to cost him an extra (US)$300,000 he wouldn't have had to pay had it not been sent.  The suit doesn't specify damages but Greer had demanded $1million from the company before negotiations broke down.  Houston legal expert Richard Alderman says that Greer has the daunting task of proving the company did damage him: did it make a promise it knew it would break and did the cost of the divorce go up due to the information the company gave his wife?  Finally, if you want to send a bouquet to your mistress and hope to keep it hush-hush, "I'm a big consumer advocate, but in this case I'd have to go with caveat emptor."