In 2004, CWJ founder Dr. Susan Weiss pioneered the practice of filing tort claims in family court for get refusal. In law, a tort is a wrongful act that causes injury, and for which the state awards monetary damages. Get refusal, CWJ asserts with every claim filed, is an intentional infliction of emotional distress that directly harms women, and which entitles them to compensation.
CWJ’s torts have earned women hundreds of thousands of shekels in damages, with far-reaching effects:
- Nearly all get-refusing husbands who have been holding out for years — sometimes decades — give the get immediately when faced with a tort.
- Legally, CWJ’s torts have successfully redefined get refusal from a “halakhic right” to a “civil wrong.” Culturally, the torts have helped reframe get refusal as an act of domestic violence.
- Torts give women a practical way to take back their power within an inherently asymmetrical system of Jewish divorce. They also sever the woman’s dependency on the rabbinic court’s determination of whether she “deserves” a get or not, recognizing women’s freedom as a right rather than a privilege.
Because of its efficacy, CWJ’s tort strategy has become mainstream in the Israeli legal community as well as internationally. CWJ has used torts to help countless women attain their freedom, and offers free legal training to attorneys on how to file a tort.