Case Title: Doe v. Zwelling

Citation: 

Docket Number: 050155

State: virginia

Court: Virginia Supreme Court

Date: 2005-11-04T00:00:00Z

Document:
Present:  Lacy, Keenan, Koontz, Kinser, Lemons, and Agee, JJ., 
and Russell, S.J. 
 
JOHN DOE  
 
 
 
 
 
OPINION BY 
SENIOR JUSTICE CHARLES S. RUSSELL 
v.   Record No. 050155  
 
November 4, 2005 
 
SHOMER ZWELLING, L.C.S.W. 
 
FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE CITY OF WILLIAMSBURG  
AND JAMES CITY COUNTY 
Samuel T. Powell, III, Judge 
 
 
In this action to recover damages for professional 
malpractice, the plaintiff alleged that, while being treated 
by the defendant, a health care provider, the defendant 
breached the applicable standard of care in several respects, 
including engaging in “an inappropriate and extraprofessional 
relationship with Plaintiff’s wife.”  The sole question 
presented on appeal is whether the plaintiff’s cause of action 
for professional malpractice is barred by Code § 8.01-220, the 
“heart balm” statute. 
Facts and Proceedings 
 
John Doe, the plaintiff,∗ brought this action against 
Shomer Zwelling, a licensed clinical social worker, for 
professional malpractice.  The defendant filed a demurrer to 
the original motion for judgment on the ground that the 
plaintiff's cause of action, while ostensibly a claim for 
                     
∗ The trial court entered an order adopting the pseudonyms 
“John Doe” for the plaintiff and “Sally Poe” for his wife, to 
protect their privacy and that of their children. 
 
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professional malpractice, was, in fact, an action to recover 
damages for alienation of affection, which had been abolished 
by Code § 8.01-220.  The court sustained the demurrer and the 
plaintiff, by leave of court, filed an amended motion for 
judgment. 
 
Because the case comes to us upon a demurrer to the 
amended motion for judgment, which is complete and does not 
incorporate by reference allegations in the original motion 
for judgment, we address only the allegations contained in the 
amended motion for judgment.  Fuste v. Riverside Healthcare 
Assoc., 265 Va. 127, 129-30, 575 S.E.2d 858, 860 (2003).  The 
facts will be summarized as set forth in the amended motion 
for judgment, and will be considered, along with those 
reasonably and fairly implied from them, in the light most 
favorable to the plaintiff.  Id. 
 
The defendant is a licensed clinical social worker in 
Williamsburg, Virginia, providing professional psychotherapy 
and counseling services.  The plaintiff’s wife had been 
treated professionally by the defendant from early 1999 until 
2001, for psychological problems and to improve the 
relationship between husband and wife.  In 2001, the defendant 
suggested that the relationship between husband and wife would 
improve if the defendant were also to treat the husband 
individually.  The plaintiff then entered into a professional 
 
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relationship with the defendant, who thereafter treated both 
husband and wife separately.  During the defendant's treatment 
of the plaintiff, the defendant asked for intimate details 
concerning the plaintiff's relationship with his wife and his 
past sexual, emotional and social history.  The defendant 
cautioned that the substance of these confidences should never 
be revealed to plaintiff's wife and intimated that she might 
become suicidal if she learned of them.  The defendant told 
the plaintiff that his wife had been sexually abused as a 
teenager and that she could not "express love in a normal, 
healthy way due to the traumatic experiences she had 
undergone."  The plaintiff was unwilling to submit to the 
defendant's suggested treatment consisting of "Buddhist 
meditation" and "spiritual meditation retreats," and the 
defendant then advised him to take psychotropic drugs.  The 
defendant referred him to a psychiatrist who prescribed such 
drugs, which the plaintiff took. 
 
The plaintiff concluded that both his emotional condition 
and his marriage were deteriorating rather than improving 
while he was under the defendant’s care.  Consequently, he 
withdrew from the defendant’s treatment in August 2002.  At 
about the same time, the plaintiff's wife told him that she 
wished to terminate the marriage. 
 
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The plaintiff thereafter discovered that the defendant 
had been maligning him during the treatment of his wife, 
disclosing to her intimate details that the plaintiff had 
disclosed to the defendant in confidence and that before, 
during, and after defendant's treatment of the plaintiff, the 
defendant had been "engaged in an inappropriate and 
extraprofessional relationship" with the plaintiff's wife.  As 
a result, the plaintiff stated that he had suffered severe 
damage to his emotional health, had lost 23 pounds and had 
begun a heavy reliance on tranquilizing medications.  The 
plaintiff attributed his damages entirely to the defendant's 
breaches of the applicable professional standard of care. 
 
The defendant again filed a demurrer based on the effect 
of Code § 8.01-220.  The trial court held that, 
notwithstanding the form of the action, the "overriding 
essential basis of the claim is one for alienation of 
affection which is barred by Va. Code § 8.01-220."  The trial 
court sustained the demurrer and dismissed the case with 
prejudice.  We awarded the plaintiff an appeal. 
Analysis 
 
Clinical social workers are among the professions defined 
as "health care providers" by Code § 8.01-581.1 and are thus 
subject to the provisions of Title 8.01, Chapter 21.1 of the 
Code, relating to medical malpractice.  Actions against such 
 
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persons for professional malpractice are subject to the same 
laws as those governing such actions against physicians.  In 
the present case, the plaintiff phrased his allegations in 
terms of the defendant’s departures from the applicable 
standard of care.  A substantial part of his claimed damages, 
however, arose from the effect of the defendant’s conduct upon 
the plaintiff’s marriage. 
 
Code § 8.01-220(A) provides: 
Notwithstanding any other provision of law to the 
contrary, no civil action shall lie or be maintained in 
this Commonwealth for alienation of affection, breach of 
promise to marry, or criminal conversation upon which a 
cause of action arose or occurred on or after June 28, 
1968. 
 
 
We applied that section in McDermott v. Reynolds, 260 Va. 
98, 530 S.E.2d 902 (2000), to an action ostensibly brought to 
recover damages for intentional infliction of emotional 
distress.  There, the plaintiff contended that the defendant 
had carried on an adulterous relationship with the plaintiff’s 
wife, had refused plaintiff’s demand that he desist and, 
instead, had “flaunted it outwardly,” causing the plaintiff to 
suffer severe emotional distress, loss of weight and 
interference with his ability to perform the duties of his 
profession.  Id. at 100-01, 530 S.E.2d at 903.  The trial 
court sustained a demurrer, holding that the action was, in 
reality, based on a cause of action for alienation of 
 
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affection and was therefore barred by Code § 8.01-220.  Id. at 
100, 530 S.E.2d at 902.  We affirmed, basing our analysis upon 
the defendant’s alleged conduct rather than upon the 
differences between the causes of action for alienation of 
affection (now barred by statute) and intentional infliction 
of emotional distress (still alive and well).  We adopted that 
approach to “foreclose a revival of the abolished tort of 
alienation of affection asserted in the guise of an action for 
intentional infliction of emotional distress.”  Id. at 103, 
530 S.E.2d at 904. 
 
In McDermott, all of the plaintiff’s injuries were 
ascribed to the effect of the defendant’s conduct upon the 
plaintiff’s marriage.  In the present case, that cannot be 
said.  Here, the plaintiff has alleged facts constituting 
breaches of the defendant’s professional standard of care that 
would be compensable in damages even if the plaintiff were 
unmarried.  Such breaches might include maligning him to a 
third person and administering improper treatment, as well as 
subjecting him to the humiliation and embarrassment of having 
his most intimate confidences disclosed to a third party 
without his authorization. 
Conclusion 
 
The amended motion for judgment thus presents a 
combination of claims, some of which are barred by Code 
 
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§ 8.01-220 and others which are not.  Because a demurrer goes 
to the whole pleading to which it is addressed, it should be 
overruled if any part of the pleading states a cause of action 
upon which relief may be granted. 
“A demurrer to an entire declaration, . . . raises 
the question, whether or no there be matter in the 
declaration sufficient to maintain the action.  If 
the declaration contain several counts, and any one 
be good, it follows that there is matter enough to 
maintain the action. . . .  The same rule applies 
when there is a demurrer to a single count 
containing several breaches, any one of which is 
well assigned; or to a demurrer to a single count 
containing a demand of several matters which in 
their nature are divisible, and any one of which is 
well claimed. . . .  [I]f there be matter enough in 
the declaration to maintain the action, the demurrer 
must be entirely overruled.” 
 
Henderson v. Stringer, 6 Gratt. (47 Va.) 130, 133-34 (1849). 
 
We conclude that those claims not barred by Code § 8.01-
220 state a cause of action for professional malpractice and 
that it was error to dismiss the entire case by sustaining the 
demurrer. 
 
Nevertheless, we adhere to the view expressed in 
McDermott, that a revival of the abolished tort of alienation 
of affection in the guise of another cause of action must be 
avoided.  Therefore, in any further proceedings upon remand, 
the trial court should, by appropriate rulings on the 
admissibility of evidence (and in the event of a jury trial, 
by appropriate instructions), exclude from the fact-finder’s 
 
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consideration any effect the defendant’s conduct may have had 
upon the plaintiff’s marriage.  We will therefore reverse the 
judgment of the trial court and remand the case for further 
proceedings consistent with this opinion. 
Reversed and remanded.