## Facts

- Karen J. Thomas and James D. LaRosa lived together for several years and represented themselves publicly as husband and wife.
- Thomas alleged an oral agreement under which she would provide “valuable services,” including acting as LaRosa’s companion, housekeeper, confidante, and business helper.
- Thomas alleged LaRosa promised lifetime financial security for her and to educate her children in exchange for those services.
- At LaRosa’s insistence, Thomas moved with him from West Virginia to Georgia; they obtained a jointly owned house.
- Thomas alleged LaRosa provided support for approximately eight years and then stopped, breaching the agreement.
- Throughout the relationship, LaRosa remained legally married to another woman.

## Issues

1. Whether agreements between adult nonmarital partners for future support, not explicitly and inseparably founded on sexual services, are enforceable.
2. Whether such an agreement is unenforceable on public-policy grounds when performance requires a married party to continue a marital-type relationship with a third person.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia answered the certified question in the negative as applied to the alleged facts.
- The court held the alleged lifetime-support agreement unenforceable because it contemplated and required continuation of a marital-type relationship while LaRosa remained legally married to someone else.
- The court effectively sustained dismissal for failure to state a claim.
- The court indicated that some agreements between unmarried cohabitants may be enforceable in other circumstances.

## Legal Principles

- Courts will not enforce a contract that is contrary to public policy.
- Agreements “explicitly and inseparably founded on sexual services” are void as meretricious.
- Even if not explicitly sexual, an agreement is unenforceable if its performance necessarily involves conduct that conflicts with strong public policy, including the exclusivity of an existing lawful marriage.
- Economic or property arrangements between nonmarital partners may be enforceable when they do not require the functional equivalent of a bigamous or polygamous relationship.

## Conclusion

West Virginia refused to enforce an alleged cohabitation support contract where enforcement would require recognizing a second marital-type household for a person already legally married, holding the agreement void as against public policy while leaving open enforceability of nonmeretricious cohabitation agreements on materially different facts.


Thomas v. LaRosa, 400 S.E.2d 809 (W. Va. 1990)