Plaintiff Loses Suit Against Sex/Love Addiction Recovery Program That Led Ex-Boyfriend to Cut Off Contact

From Liu v. Augustine Fellowship SLAA Felowship-Wide Services Inc., decided July 11 by N.Y. trial court judge Judy Kim:

The gravamen of plaintiff’s complaint is that in March 2024 her former romantic partner began attending “sex and/or love addiction” meetings organized by defendant Greater NY Intergroup, Inc. … and reading publications by defendant The Augustine Fellowship SLAA Fellowship-Wide Services Inc … promoting “no contact” recovery from sex addiction. Three months later, plaintiff’s former partner told her that he had “sex and/or love addiction,” for which she was a trigger, and that other Intergroup members and the Augustine Fellowship’s literature recommended that he go “no contact”—i.e., cut off all communication with her. He then cut off all interaction with her.

Plaintiff asserts, in the course of her 126-page complaint, that the Augustine Fellowship’s publications are deceptive because they “present[] unrecognized psychological concepts as real medical diseases, promote[] recovery and self-diagnosis without scientific substantiation, redefine[] recognized medical terminology, and promote[] “No Contact” without disclosing foreseeable risks.” Plaintiff further alleges that she experienced severe emotional distress as a result of her former partner’s actions, and sought psychotherapy and psychiatric treatment, at which time she was diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder, and Generalized Anxiety Disorder….

No dice, the court held. First, the action “fundamentally, seeks to recover for the alienation of plaintiff’s former partner’s affections—the root of plaintiff’s asserted emotional distress is her former partner’s decision to exclude her from his life,” and the New York Legislature had abolished alienation of affections actions.

Beyond that, she can’t sue under the N.Y. deceptive practices statute, for “[u]nfair, deceptive, or abusive acts or practices in the conduct of any business, trade or commerce or in the furnishing of any service”:

 ”A defendant’s actions are materially misleading when they are likely to mislead a reasonable consumer acting reasonably under the circumstances.” Plaintiff does not allege that defendants mischaracterized the nature or philosophy of their 12-step program and to the extent she believes that the views about sex and love addiction espoused in these meetings and publications have no foundation in science or medicine, the substance of defendants’ speech on these subjects “is not purely commercial, and, thus, it is protected from false advertising and deceptive practices claims.”

And she can’t sue under the intentional infliction of emotional distress tort, either:

To do so, plaintiff was required to allege: “(i) extreme and outrageous conduct; (ii) intent to cause, or disregard of a substantial probability of causing, severe emotional distress; (iii) a causal connection between the conduct and injury; and (iv) severe emotional distress.” “Extreme and outrageous conduct” must be “so outrageous in character, and so extreme in degree, as to go beyond all possible bounds of decency, and to be regarded as atrocious, and utterly intolerable in a civilized community.” This is a very high bar.

Seems correct to me.

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