Revenge is a dish best served cold, so if you’re going to tape a spouse or significant other, be cool about how you do it.

Donald Sterling may yet hang on to his basketball team, and his (probably now former) girlfriend V. Stiviano may owe him $7.5 million in damages when this is all over.

The message for people in rotten relationships regardless of what Stiviano did: check your state law about secret recording of conversations before you push the “record” button.

Now the lead for most news broadcasts in this country is the lifetime ban and $2.5 million fine imposed by the NBA against Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling, whose racist words appear to have been captured on a recording. The substance of the words aside (vile and indefensible), a major question remains: if Sterling didn’t know he was being taped, then this was an illegal recording. His girlfriend claimed that Sterling knew about the recording, according to website TMZ.

She had better be able to prove it.

Under California law, both parties to a secretly recorded conversation need to know that the recording is taking place. This places California among a group of jurisdictions in this country known as “two-party” states. In other states, what Stiviano did would have been legal whether or not Sterling knew about the recording.

We’ve written about the laws and ethics surrounding recording conversations, here, in Taping Phone Calls Is Not Worth the Risk.

Not only could Stiviano go to jail for what she did, but under the California statute Sterling could recover three times the damage he suffered as a result of the illegal recording. Excluding any damages he can show from his lifetime ban, that’s $7.5 million he could recover from Stiviano.

Won’t happen? Maybe not if Sterling is persuaded through commercial pressure to suck up his punishment or sell his team, but consider the risks of doing your own illicit recording operation.

In addition to the money, remember that illegal evidence gets excluded from trials. Most people aren’t governed by the quasi-monopolistic regime of a professional sports league. Sterling doesn’t have the same rights before his Commissioner the way he would in court. Who recorded this conversation? What happened to the tape after the recording? Was it doctored? Did he give his consent to the recording? Both sides in a real trial fight it out even if it’s admitted into evidence.

And if it’s excluded as evidence? It’s like a tree that falls in the forest with nobody around. It may make a sound, but you know for sure the judge or jury won’t get to consider it.