Hopefully there will not be any winners in the law suit against psychics

Hopefully there will not be any winners in the law suit against psychics

According to NBC 4 Los Angeles, a man who claims to be cursed has sued a psychic who he says falsely promised she could remove it. The plaintiff, Mauro Restrepo, is suing Sophia Adams and her business (“Psychic Love Specialist by Sophia”), located in Palos Verdes Estates. Other defendants include Adams’s husband, her daughter, and two clairvoyants (whose involvement, sadly, was not explained).
Restrepo allegedly found Adams’s website when he “searched for psychics on Google” on September 17. (It doesn’t say what search he ran, but she’s at the top of the list if one Googles “psychics in palos verdes...

According to NBC 4 Los Angeles, a man who claims to be cursed has sued a psychic who he says falsely promised she could remove it. The plaintiff, Mauro Restrepo, is suing Sophia Adams and her business (“Psychic Love Specialist by Sophia”), located in Palos Verdes Estates. Other defendants include Adams’s husband, her daughter, and two clairvoyants (whose involvement, sadly, was not explained).
Restrepo allegedly found Adams’s website when he “searched for psychics on Google” on September 17. (It doesn’t say what search he ran, but she’s at the top of the list if one Googles “psychics in palos verdes estates.”) The suit alleges that Adams offers “intutitive and psychic readings, spiritual counseling and guidance, emotional healing,” and other services. According to her website, Adams also offers psychometry, aura cleansing, chakra evaluation, tarot-card reading, crystal-light therapy, crystal-ball reading, and past-life regression, and also all this stuff too: I am an experienced 3rd generation Psychic, Trained Clairvoyant, Clairaudient, Certified Medium, Certified Angel Intuitive(TM), Certified Angel Card Reader(TM), Certified Archangel Life Coach (TM), Certified Realm Reader, Certified Assertiveness Coach, Certified Fairyologist, Certified Flower Therapy Healer, Certified Angelic Symbols Healer, Certified Ethereal Crystal healer, Reiki Master certified in: Usui-Kundalini-Violet flame-Sacred Flame, spiritual teacher of the Certified Angel Guidance Intuitive Course(TM), and Practitioner of Magic. The website did not say what groups or entities certify the practitioners of these various arts, although I assume the California Board of Fairyology is involved in that one.
Oh, she also offers “love-life analysis,” which seems to be what Restrepo was looking for. Things apparently were not going well in Restrepo’s marriage. After a tarot-card reading, he alleges, Adams divined that he was suffering from “mala suerte” (bad luck), which was placed upon him “by a witch hired by his ex-girlfriend.” Adams allegedly promised she could remove this curse for $5,100. “Despite her promises,” the lawsuit alleges, “Adams did not in any way help his marriage.” Restrepo is therefore suing her for fraud, negligence, and intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress, and the other defendants are charged with conspiracy to do those things.
It is hard to know who to sympathize less with: the person who claimed to be a certified psychic who could remove an ex-girlfriend curse (among the most powerful curses known to man) for just $5,100, or the person who claims he believed that person and gave her money to uncurse him. Ideally, no one would win this case. Unfortunately (unless it settles), someone probably will.
To prove fraud, Restrepo would have to prove Adams knew she could not lift the curse at the time she allegedly promised to do so. And even though everything Adams purports to be able to do is almost certainly bullshit, it would be difficult if not impossible to prove it’s bullshit or, more importantly, that Adams didn’t believe it wasn’t.
The latter point is more important partly because Adams will be able to raise a First Amendment defense, and is probably good at convincing people she believes what she’s doing is real (maybe even because she does believe it). You might think that because this stuff is bullshit, a First Amendment defense shouldn’t be available because there’s no protection for false statements. Many legislators have thought exactly that, and have passed laws making it illegal to provide “psychic” services for money, on the grounds that this is nonsense and so is “inherently deceptive.” But it appears that the majority view in the U.S., or at least a widespread view, is that such laws are unconstitutional. See, e.g., Nefedro v...