The Taipei District Court yesterday ruled against a woman who tried to break up her lover’s marriage by hiring a private detective agency to find a man to seduce her lover’s wife. The court ruled the contract was invalid because it involved unethical behavior.
A 28-year-old single woman, surnamed Wu (吳), began an affair with a married man, surnamed Tai (戴), about three years ago. Wu said she turned to the Gwo Haw Investigation Co, a private detective agency, because she wanted Tai to leave his wife.
Wu claimed the agency told her that its operatives would first investigate Tai and his relationship with his wife before finding a man to befriend the wife, which would eventually ruin Tai’s marriage.
“[The company] told me they needed to find a good-looking man to befriend the wife, and when their marriage was in danger, I would be able to come between them,” Wu said.
Wu said the agency did not deliver what they had promised in the contract, even though she paid it more than NT$400,000, so she sued the agency for fraud.
Gwo Haw said Wu had not disclosed the fact that Tai was still married to his wife. It said its policy forbids it from breaking up marriages — it can only break up extramarital affairs.
The Taipei District Court ruled against Wu because judges found that the contract did not obligate the company to break up Tai’s marriage.
The judges also ruled that the contract stipulated unethical behavior, so it was void in terms of the law from the very beginning and therefore Wu could not seek compensation.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
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