Recovery Brands Announces Dismissal Of Seabrook House Lawsuit

SAN DIEGO, March 10, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Recovery Brands announced today that a lawsuit filed last year against its treatment center review websites by Seabrook House (Case # 1:14-cv-05365-NLH-JS) has been dismissed with prejudice and without any financial settlement.

Recovery Brands co-founder Abhilash Patel said he was gratified by the outcome.

"The dismissal of this lawsuit with prejudice affirmed our view that the complaint was based on a fundamental misunderstanding of what Recovery Brands does, and how our third-party consumer websites function to provide people who need help with the best possible information about all of their treatment options," he said.

"It's significant to note the allegations--that we used deceptive tactics to misdirect traffic from Seabrook to other providers--were never proven," said Patel. "And those allegations could never have been proven because we don't use those tactics with anybody.  It also was never proven that we infringed on any of Seabrook House's rights or violated any laws."

Patel applauded the news that Seabrook signed a nearly identical settlement with Elements Behavioral Health, a co-defendant in the suit and one of Recovery Brands' major sponsors. "We are proud to have Elements as a sponsor because it provides extraordinary treatment for clients and for its support of our ethical digital marketing practices," he said.

Patel invited industry leaders to "work with us to establish better standards for digital marketing and launch an industry-wide education effort about the power of the web to support people with addictions."

Recovery Brands operates Rehabs.com and Recovery.org, two of the industry's leading online resources for addiction treatment and recovery. While the sites are supported by traditional advertising services, they also offer free, publicly available listings of facilities categorized by state and city, as well as independent reviews of hundreds of facilities. Those reviews are based on thousands of surveys, curated by a former Harvard fellow and bioethics research expert.

Recovery Brands adheres to the highest standards of ethics for digital marketing. All sponsored content is clearly marked, while free listings include phone numbers and links that point directly to the intended facilities. The company does not pre-qualify callers for advertisers and strictly prohibits any direct referral arrangements.

"We believe our websites fill a critical void by providing honest, useful resources similar to how Google, Yelp and Angie's List provide utility to other kinds of consumers," said Jeff Smith, Recovery Brands co-founder.  

"Consumer review portals have been a big part of the web for years and their blend of sponsored and publicly-available content does not violate the law. It's about time we had this type of resource in the addiction treatment industry, especially with more and more web-conscious clients searching for reviews of treatment centers from past clients, alumni and staff."

SOURCE Recovery Brands