Title: Melissa Phillips v. John Gelpke

State: new-jersey

Issuer: New Jersey Supreme Court

Document:

SUPREME COURT OF NEW JERSEY A- 1 September Term 2006 MELISSA PHILLIPS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. JOHN GELPKE, Defendant-Respondent, and BARBARA GELPKE, Defendant. Argued November 13, 2006 Decided May 17, 2007 On certification to the Superior Court, Appellate Division, whose opinion is reported at 382 N.J. Super. 505 (2006). Richard J. Schachter argued the cause for appellant (Norris McLaughlin & Marcus, P.A., attorneys; Mr. Schachter and Andrea S. Glaser, on the briefs). Kevin P. Kovacs argued the cause for respondent (Purcell, Ries, Shannon, Mulcahy & O Neill, attorneys). JUSTICE LaVECCHIA delivered the opinion of the Court. At age nineteen, plaintiff Melissa Phillips sued her uncle, John Gelpke, See footnote 1 for injuries resulting from his sexual abuse that occurred when she was between three and eight years old. The jury awarded plaintiff $750,000 in compensatory damages. That verdict was reversed, however, when the Appellate Division accepted defendant s argument that plaintiff s case never should have advanced to the jury. Phillips v. Gelpke, 382 N.J. Super. 505, 507 (App. Div. 2006). Plaintiff s case was faulted for not including expert testimony to explain how she came to recall repressed memories of childhood sexual abuse events. Ibid. We certified this appeal to review the reversal of plaintiff s judgment, 187 N.J. 79 (2006), and now, reverse. Plaintiff s case did not require the production of an expert to explain to the jury how she recalled her past sexual abuse. In this matter, there was no prodding of plaintiff s memory that necessitated an expert s explanation. The credibility of her memory was a matter for the finder of fact. Plaintiff was entitled to present her case of, I forgot and then I remembered, and to take her chances before the jury. Moreover, to the extent the Appellate Division bolstered its holding by relying on statute of limitations tolling cases that involved an expert s explanation for a plaintiff s inability to recall repressed memories, the court s reliance was misplaced. Tolling cases, premised on a plaintiff s asserted inability to have discovered the tort injury, involve different proof requirements. An added showing is demanded of an untimely plaintiff as a condition for late entry to the courts for redress. In that setting, a plaintiff s testimony about forgetfulness, standing alone, cannot supply the justification for an asserted inability to have discovered the injury and timely filed the action. In this matter, plaintiff s tort action was filed timely. Her cause of action never should have been subjected to a discovery-like threshold as a condition of its submission to the jury. A. That is what she told me, yes. Q. And multiple times of similar incidents and some episodic different incidents and she claims that she forgot them for several years. A. That is the word she used, yes. Q. And then she said she remembered them all. They started coming to her in flashbacks after she had a dream years after she had forgotten about these things. A. Yes. That is what she told me. Q. And do you have an opinion as to whether or not that s how memory works? A. Yes, I do. Q. And what is that? A. People can forget things. There s no question. We forget things all the time. In this case, we re not just talking about simple forgetting because when you forget something, you forget a piece of information. I don t remember what color shirt I had on last Monday. I don t remember. It just -- it s out of my head. It s not important. I ve forgotten it. I knew it at the time. In this case -- and in all fairness to [plaintiff], I don t know what she means by forgetting. But that s not how memory works. This is not forgetting one event. This would be forgetting a whole file. I mean this was not a single event. This occurred over and over many times, as I understand it. So you could say, well, I don t want to think about it any more and push it out of your mind, but to say that it was -- the whole file was completely out of my mind and then gradually pieces of the file emerged, that s not how memory works. Memory is related to the impact that the event had on you at the time and what cues may emerge later on. To simply forget a whole file of information, if -- again, if you re using forgetting in the usual way of forgetting, that s not -- even common sense would say that you don t forget a whole file. You could forget different pieces, and then when it re-emerged, the whole file would re-emerge. That s not the way memory works. You wouldn t forget a whole file of information unless that file was so traumatic and so horrible to you that you did more than just forget. There s more than forgetting. There would be I can t deal with this, so I have to push it down. That would be what we call repression or suppression. That s not forgetting. That s pushing something out of your mind. Now, in order to do that, what you -- a whole file now, a whole file is being pushed out of my mind. The file would have to contain such painful traumatic material that was threatening and scary to me. And while I would suggest that a person allegedly being molested is horrible, in this case there is no evidence of threat, violence. As a matter of fact, according to [plaintiff], as a young child, she actually sorted out -- she would initiate it sometimes herself. So that pattern is not consistent with repressing something. So the concept of just the whole file disappeared and then kind of suddenly came back in my opinion is not how memory works. So if it was regular forgetting, it wouldn t work that way, and if it was repression, in my opinion, we don t have the situation where a person could repress a whole file totally for that long, in my opinion. With that, at the close of the evidence, defendants moved for a directed verdict. They achieved partial success. In respect of plaintiff s claim of sexual abuse against her uncle, the trial court denied the motion, finding the issue to involve a credibility decision both as to what [plaintiff] says and what [defendant] says happened or didn t happen and, also, as to what the experts say regarding the reliability or lack of reliability of these flashbacks or memories that [plaintiff] has told them about. On the other hand, the court dismissed plaintiff s negligence claim against her aunt, concluding that [t]here s not enough evidence for this jury to determine rationally that [plaintiff s aunt/defendant s wife] either knew or observed something from which she should have known that [defendant] was engaging in sexual abuse of [plaintiff]. On the claim against defendant, the jury returned a verdict in plaintiff s favor and awarded $750,000 in compensatory damages. The trial court denied defendant s motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict, added accrued interest and costs, and entered an aggregate judgment of $863,520. On appeal, defendant claimed that plaintiff s judgment was flawed in several respects. For present purposes we note only defendant s successful argument that the verdict should be vacated because plaintiff failed to produce expert testimony to support her assertion that she had forgotten, and then recovered, her recollection of being abused. As the panel explained, the issue was whether a case based on repressed memories can be submitted to a jury without expert testimony diagnosing the alleged victim as having dissociative amnesia and explaining and justifying the concept that repressed memories can be accurately recalled. Phillips, supra, 382 N.J. Super. at 510. The court concluded that repressed memory is, at least, a highly complex and controversial subject, and one which should not be considered by a jury without expert testimony. Id. at 512. In so holding, the panel disagreed that the testimony about plaintiff s process of recall went to the weight to be given to the substance of her testimony about recalled memories, not to its admissibility. Id. at 509-10. Plaintiff-Appellant, v. JOHN GELPKE, Defendant-Respondent, and BARBARA GELPKE, Defendant. JUSTICE RIVERA-SOTO, concurring in the result. Plaintiff Melissa Phillips testified that, while still a child between the ages of three and eight, she was the victim of several sexual assaults by her uncle, defendant John Gelpke. She explained that some of her memories of those childhood assaults were triggered by a dream she had at age eleven and that, thereafter, she recalled further instances of sexual abuse as flashbacks. Defendant sought to bar that testimony, claiming that plaintiff was required to tender expert testimony supporting her delayed recall as a condition precedent to admissibility, a theory of admissibility rejected by the trial court but embraced by the Appellate Division. The majority concludes that plaintiff was entitled to advance her case of[] I forgot and then I remembered, ante, ___ N.J. ___ (2007) (slip op. at 2), and that no expert testimony was required to advance that cause. In the majority s terms, the question is whether there is something peculiar about plaintiff s recall of earlier events, which is beyond the ken of the average juror or is so esoteric that it requires explanation through an expert s testimony. Id. at ___ (slip op. at 14). The majority concludes that it was the jury s responsibility to consider plaintiff s story of recollection and to determine whether it was credible, even though unadorned by expert validation that she could recollect as she says she did. Id. at ___ (slip op. at 15-16). I reach that end but through different, more traditional means. Thus, I concur with the majority s result. See footnote 6 The concept of recall, on which the majority relies, is but an element of overall witness competence. Thus, in my view, this appeal requires that we focus on the intersection between the competence of a witness to testify and the need, if any, for expert testimony to support the witness s recall of an event. From the perspective of a witness s competence, when a witness testifies as to events that trigger the witness s recollection of a past event, that triggering event addresses the weight of the witness s testimony, and not its admissibility. Stated differently, when, as here, a claim is filed timely, a temporarily forgotten memory does not constitute a recovered memory that requires expert testimony in order to be admissible. See footnote 7 The operative concept here is not the element of recall, but the core concept of competence. The overarching rule in respect of testimony concerning factual events is plainly stated: [e]very person is competent to be a witness[.] N.J.R.E. 601 (emphasis supplied). We recently explained that Rule 601 reflects the basic policy of our law that every person is qualified and compellable to be a witness and to give relevant and competent evidence at a trial. State v. Briley, 53 N.J. 498, 506 (1969) (citation omitted). Stated differently, our system of justice . . . has established as a general rule that all persons should be qualified to testify, and that disqualification should be the exception[.] Germann v. Matriss, 55 N.J. 193, 217 (1970). As a result, Rule 601 focuses on whether a prospective witness [has] the ability to understand questions and to frame and express intelligent answers. . . . [State in Interest of] R.R., 79 N.J. 97, 114 (1979) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). [State v. G.C., 188 N.J. 118, 133 (2006).] The analysis, therefore, is simple -- [i]n order to be competent to testify, a witness should have sufficient capacity to observe, recollect and communicate with respect to the matters about which he is called to testify, and to understand the nature and obligations of an oath[,] State v. G.C., supra, 188 N.J. at 131 (citations and internal quotation marks omitted) -- and those four elements of competence have been codified in our Rules of Evidence. See N.J.R.E. 602 (perception), N.J.R.E. 601(a) (recollection), N.J.R.E. 601(a) (communication), and N.J.R.E. 601(b), 603 (obligation for truthfulness). See footnote 8 Against that primary backdrop, there is no meaningful or recognized difference between recall -- plaintiff s theory of I forgot and then I remembered -- and core principles of competence. Reduced to its essence, then, the import of this case addresses witness competence, and not any particular theory of recall. Once competence is established, as it was here, [t]he extent to which . . . testimony [is] to be believed [is] for the jury. State v. Carter, 91 N.J. 86, 124 (1982). Specifically, questions concerning the [witness s] recall are now relevant only insofar as they bear upon the weight which the factfinder places upon testimony that has in fact been given. State in Interest of R.R., 79 N.J. 97, 116 (1979). In the end, this case developed as it should have. Plaintiff testified as to how and why she recalled the events of sexual abuse that occurred when she was between the ages of three and eight. That testimony, which explained her memory of the events and how those memories came to her, implicates solely a quintessential element of witness competence: plaintiff s memory or recall. There is nothing in plaintiff s recall of the acts of sexual abuse she alleged against defendant that is beyond the ken of the average juror or is so esoteric as to require expert testimony. Defendant, ironically, was advantaged by his successful in limine motion because plaintiff was barred from presenting any expert proofs to explain why her memories were triggered by a dream and then returned to her only in bits-and-pieces. Further, defendant, by way of impeachment, presented expert proofs challenging plaintiff s competence in respect of her recall and, hence, her credibility. The jury, based on all of the evidence presented to it, performed its function and assessed plaintiff s credibility. That, in a nutshell, is precisely how proofs in our system of trials are to be developed. No error -- much less reversible error -- is present in this record on this point. The better, more traditional rule of law that commands those conclusions is founded on plaintiff s competence as a witness and not on some idiosyncratic theory of recall. Viewed thusly, plaintiff clearly was competent as a witness; whatever shortcomings her recall of the events may have had were properly addressed by reference to the weight to be given to that testimony, and not to its admissibility. Therefore, although I reject the majority s analysis as foreign and untethered to traditional evidence law concepts, I nonetheless concur in the result. SUPREME COURT OF NEW JERSEY NO. A-1 SEPTEMBER TERM 2006 ON CERTIFICATION TO Appellate Division, Superior Court MELISSA PHILLIPS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. JOHN GELPKE, Defendant-Respondent, and BARBARA GELPKE, Defendant. DECIDED May 17, 2007 Chief Justice Zazzali PRESIDING OPINION BY Justice LaVecchia CONCURRING OPINION BY Justice Rivera-Soto DISSENTING OPINION BY