Can You Subpoena a Mistress in a Divorce Case?

One of the more common fault-based grounds for divorce is adultery. A spouse having an affair is certainly good reason to call a marriage quits. But let’s say you discover your husband is having an affair and you know the name of the other woman — are you able to subpoena her to come to court?

The short answer here is yes, you can subpoena the alleged mistress to testify as a witness at a deposition or at a trial. Keep in mind a subpoena is only helpful to you in this situation if you are able to legally serve the paperwork to the alleged mistress, so you would need to know either where she lives or works. Sometimes people filing for divorce will hire a private investigator to discover this information, but the simplest way to proceed would be to ask your spouse to provide the lover’s address when he answers your interrogatories.

It is certainly possible he will object to the question, but this objection usually will not stand if you can convince the court that the woman’s testimony is important to the case.

How far will the subpoena go?

Continuing this example, while you could subpoena your husband’s mistress to come and act as a witness, you would not be able to go after phone records or any other private information. This is because the case is strictly between you and your husband — the mistress is not a party in the lawsuit and therefore there are some strict limits as to what types of information you can gather on her.

For further guidance on how to proceed in a divorce case when your husband or wife has had an affair, work with an experienced Long Island attorney at Bryan L. Salamone & Associates.