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Impending Divorce Turns Weird After Judge Orders Malicious Tickling Must Stop Immediately
The end of a failing marriage turned very strange because one spouse couldn’t keep their hands off the other
Divorces are rarely dignified and easy affairs. Relationships that simply don’t work any more, or never did, quickly devolve and are nitpicked over the smallest and weirdest things. In the 1930s, a man suing his wife for a split had to get a court order to stop his spouse from coming and tickling him while he worked as a street car operator.
In 1933 Chicago, Joseph Klima served his wife Pauline with a divorce suit, alleging cruelty. While the dissolution of their marriage was playing out, he had to take extra steps to address the harassment he told the court that he was a victim of.
Klima and his attorney went before Judge Rudolph Desort requesting an injunction against Pauline. He swore that while he was working as a street car operator, she made a practice of sneaking up behind him on the platform where he stood to drive, and tickled him hard, usually just as he was just hitting heavier traffic.
Klima testified:
“I’m very ticklish and she does it in the hope that I’ll lose control of the car and have an accident.”
