Harrelson v. Lee

798 F.Supp.2d 310

Jessica HARRELSON

v.SEUNG HEUN LEE and Does 1 to 100, inclusive.

Civil Action No. 09–11714–RGS.

United States District Court, D. Massachusetts.

July 21, 2011.

Ryan A. Kent, Law Office of Ryan Kent, San Rafael, CA, C. William Hoilman, M & A Counselors & Fiduciaries, LLC, Woburn, MA, for Jessica Harrelson.

Paul R. Mastrocola, Burns & Levinson, Kenneth B. Walton, Patricia B. Gary, Donovan Hatem, LLP, Boston, MA, for Seung Heun Lee and Does 1 to 100, inclusive.

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER ON DEFENDANT'S MOTION TO DISMISS

STEARNS, District Judge.

This case arises from the alleged rape of Jessica Harrelson, a University of Massachusetts at Amherst student, by Seung Heun Lee (also known as Ilchi Lee or Lee), the founder of Dahnak, “a totalistic, high demand cult-group.” Am. Compl. ¶ 4. The well-pleaded allegations of the Complaint are as follows. Lee founded Dahnak in Korea in 1980. Lee eventually expanded Dahnak internationally, including to the United States, where he has opened several dozen “Dahn Yoga” centers and affiliated businesses. The Dahn centers purport to teach a mind-body practice that blends yoga, tai chi, martial arts, and meditation exercises to maximize the brain's functioning. Harrelson contends that Dahn Yoga is “designed and intended to recruit and indoctrinate people into the Dahn organization, where they are unknowingly subjected to an intensive program of psychological manipulation, indoctrination and various techniques of coercive thought reform designed to induce them to become Ilchi Lee's disciples and devote themselves to serving him and his ‘vision.’ ” Id. ¶ 6.

In the fall of 2003, while studying full-time at Amherst, Harrelson was introduced to Dahn Yoga through an affiliated campus club. According to Harrelson, her “Dahn Masters” initially emphasized physical exercises, meditation, stretching, breathing, and the “healing” techniques of Dahn Yoga. They promised Harrelson that Dahn Yoga would cure her chronic abdominal pain. They told her that Dahnak “promoted world peace and health through the dissemination and globalization of Dahn Yoga practices.” Id. ¶ 39. In the beginning, Dahn Yoga gave Harrelson an ineffable sense of belonging and purpose.

Over time, the Dahn Masters pressured Harrelson to deepen her commitment to Dahn Yoga by enrolling in additional classes and workshops, including special training retreats in Sedona, Arizona and Waltham, Massachusetts. During the Sedona retreat, Harrelson was subjected to “isolation from the outside world including friends and family, authoritarian dominion, enforced group activity, intense peer pressure, lack of privacy, extreme and constant activity, excessive exercise and overwork, forced maintenance of stress positions, sleep deprivation, and a modified diet.” Id. ¶ 45. Her days began at 6 a.m. and ended at 1 a.m. The Dahn Masters instructed Harrelson in the “proper” way to greet Lee by standing silently at attention while he made his way to his chair and then showing her gratitude for his presence by bowing, clapping, cheering, and jumping up and down. She was also taught a ritual greeting that she was to parrot on Lee's command.

As the training regimen intensified, Harrelson became a “true believer” in Lee's “vision” and saw Dahn Yoga as “the answer” to all of her problems. Id. ¶ 49. In March of 2004, the Dahn Masters told Harrelson that her continued personal and spiritual growth depended on her becoming a Dahn Yoga instructor, which required that she attend “Healer School” in Sedona. When Harrelson told them that she could not afford the $10,000 tuition fee, they persuaded her that taking out a student loan would be the best investment that she could make in her soul.

After another retreat in May of 2004, Harrelson was enlisted to assist in organizing a Dahn Yoga conference in Boston. From June through September of 2004, she worked for little or no compensation from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on conference matters, trained from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. at the Somerville Dahn Center, taught Dahn Yoga classes at Brandeis from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., and then trained from 9 p.m. to 11 p.m. at the Newton Dahn center, which she helped clean and close nightly. At the conclusion of the conference, Lee met privately with Harrelson and asked her to come to work for him in Korea. Although initially reluctant, Harrelson felt that she could not refuse Lee's request. By this point, Harrelson had used all of the money that she had available from student and personal loans to pay for Dahn Yoga training, special massage tools, healing necklaces, and a light and sound brain stimulation device.

In November of 2004, Harrelson's Dahn Masters persuaded her to drop out of college to focus on her training full-time. The following month, Harrelson attended Masters Training in Sedona where she was required to perform as many as 3,000 bows daily beginning at 5 a.m., run shoeless over gravel, hold a push-up posture for twenty to thirty minutes, crawl across the floor on her forearms and elbows, drink toilet water, and lick and kiss the feet of other trainees. Under the effects of the indoctrination, Harrelson pledged that she would die for Lee and his “vision.”

After receiving “Earthstar Training,” Harrelson moved to Korea in January of 2005, where she worked twelve to twenty hours a day, six or seven days a week, teaching classes and writing books for a Dahn Yoga corporate affiliate called Brain Respiration English (BR English). She was given only enough money to cover her room, board, and additional Dahn training.¹ At Lee's direction, Harrelson was briefly transferred to two Dahn centers in Seoul, where she slept on the floor and performed duties (all uncompensated) similar to the ones she had performed in the Massachusetts centers.

In June of 2005, Lee sent Harrelson back to Boston, where she continued her work for the Dahn Yoga centers, handing out promotional flyers, putting up posters, cooking, cleaning, teaching Dahn Yoga classes, grooming new members, and organizing center events from 5 a.m. until at least 1 a.m. Three months later, Lee sent word through the Massachusetts Dahn Masters that he wanted her to return to Korea. Harrelson complied and resumed work at BR English.

In Korea, Lee privately tutored Harrelson on several occasions and gave her the special “soul name” of “Dahn Soon,” meaning “simple” in Korean. He bestowed on Harrelson his surname “Lee,” and told her that he considered her to be his daughter. Lee showered Harrelson with gifts, invited her to his apartment to cook for him and eat with him, and took her with him to the sauna so that she could massage his feet. On numerous occasions, she spent the night at Lee's apartment in a room reserved for Dahn Masters.

On October 22, 2006, Lee's caretaker summoned Harrelson to Lee's apartment and instructed her to take a shower. When Lee arrived a few hours later, he watched television with Harrelson and then called her into his bedroom. Lee told Harrelson to take off her suit jacket so that she would be more comfortable. When she did so, Lee drew her into his bed, began to caress and kiss her, and stroked his genitals with her clenched hand. He pulled down his pants and pushed Harrelson's head under the covers, and forced her to perform fellatio. Lee then pushed her on her back, removed her pants and underwear, and penetrated her vagina. Harrelson did not resist because “[a]s a result of the treatment and conditions [Harrelson] had been subjected to by Dahn, ... she was unable to resist Ilchi Lee's emotional and psychological dominance.” Id. ¶ 95. Nevertheless, she “did not willingly and freely consent” to Lee's sexual acts. Id.

The following morning, Harrelson told her Dahn supervisor that she was resigning as a Dahn Master because Lee had sexually abused her. The supervisor and another senior Dahn Master began a campaign to persuade Harrelson that what had happened to her was “right and natural” and that there was a spiritual aspect to Lee's sexuality that she simply did not comprehend. Id. ¶ 97. They insisted that it was a great honor to receive intimate attention from Lee and that she owed him an apology. They accused her of being a traitor to Dahnak and to Lee. Harrelson became so emotionally distraught that she suffered panic attacks, night terrors, and depression. She began to cut herself on her left shoulder, upper arm, and forearm with a razor blade.

Although Harrelson “was aware that Ilchi Lee's sexual abuse of her was wrongful almost immediately after it occurred, for quite a while she was still under the influence of the Dahn organization, which she still believed was an enlightened group” that had “helped improve her life and helped save the world.” Id. ¶ 99. In December of 2006, Harrelson received permission to resign as a Dahn Master on the condition that she write a letter of apology to Lee. Because she was working illegally in Korea without a valid work visa and had no independent means of support, she continued to work for BR English until October of 2008, when she finally had accumulated enough money to buy a plane ticket home.

In her Massachusetts Amended Complaint, Harrelson alleges intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress/sexual abuse against Lee, asserting jurisdiction on the basis of diversity of citizenship.² On December 8, 2010, Lee filed a motion to dismiss on jurisdictional and statute of limitations grounds.

DISCUSSION

“To survive a motion to dismiss, a complaint must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 1949, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009) (internal quotation omitted). “[A] plaintiff's obligation to provide the grounds of his entitlement to relief requires more than labels and conclusions, and a formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action will not do.” Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555, 127 S.Ct. 1955...