Case Name: Certification From the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington in Nancy Louise Tyson, Plaintiff, v. Dwight Robert Tyson, Defendant
Court: Washington Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Washington
Decision Date: 1986-10-30
Citations: 107 Wash. 2d 72
Docket Number: No. 51908-1
Parties: Certification From the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington in Nancy Louise Tyson, Plaintiff, v. Dwight Robert Tyson, Defendant.
Judges: Dore, Andersen, Callow, and Goodloe, JJ., concur.
Reporter: Washington Reports
Volume: 107
Pages: 72–97

Head Matter:
[No. 51908-1.
En Banc.
October 30, 1986.]
Certification From the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington in Nancy Louise Tyson, Plaintiff, v. Dwight Robert Tyson, Defendant.
Sindell & Levy, Inc., P.S., by Barbara Jo Levy, for plaintiff.
Carney, Stephenson, Badley, Smith, Mueller & Spell-man, P.S., by Sylvia Luppert, for defendant.
J. Kathleen Learned and Melanie J. Rowland on behalf of Northwest Women's Law Center, amici curiae for plaintiff.
Bertha B. Fitzer on behalf of Washington Association of Defense Counsel, amicus curiae for defendant.

Opinion:
Durham, J.
The United States District Court for the Western District of Washington has certified the following question of state law to this court: Does the discovery rule, which tolls the statute of limitations until the plaintiff discovers or reasonably should have discovered a cause of action, apply to intentional torts where the victim has blocked the incident from her conscious memory during the entire time of the statute of limitations? We answer the question in the negative.
The plaintiff here alleges that she was the victim of sexual abuse during her childhood. The parties have stipulated to the following facts: Plaintiff Nancy Tyson filed a complaint in the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington on August 26, 1983, alleging that her father, the defendant Dwight Robert Tyson, committed multiple acts of sexual assault upon her from 1960 through 1969. Plaintiff, whose birthdate is April 20, 1957, was between 3 and 11 years old at the time of the alleged acts, and was 26 years old at the time she filed the complaint. Plaintiff further alleged that the sexual assaults caused her to suppress any memory of the acts and that she did not remember the alleged acts until she entered psychological therapy during 1983. Plaintiff filed the complaint within 1 year of her recollection of the alleged acts.
Defendant has moved for summary judgment of dismissal in the federal court contending that, as a matter of law, plaintiff's claim is barred by the statutes of limitation in RCW 4.16.080 and 4.16.100.
We begin our analysis with a review of the statutes of limitation applicable to this action. RCW 4.16.080(2) provides that, in general, an action for personal injury must be brought within 3 years of the time the cause of action accrued. RCW 4.16.100(1) provides that an action for assault and battery must be brought within 2 years. If the person bringing the action is under the age of 18 years at the time the cause of action accrues, the statute of limitations is tolled until the person becomes 18 years old. RCW 4.16.190. Under a literal reading of the limitation statutes, the cause of action accrues when the alleged wrongful act occurs. Ruth v. Dight, 75 Wn.2d 660, 665, 453 P.2d 631 (1969). Under these rules, the limitation period in this case expired at the latest on April 20, 1978, or 3 years after plaintiff's 18th birthday. Because plaintiff brought her action more than 8 years after her 18th birthday, her action would ordinarily be barred by the applicable statutes of limitation.
Plaintiff contends, however, that the discovery rule should apply to her complaint. The discovery rule provides that a statute of limitations does not begin to run until the plaintiff, using reasonable diligence, would have discovered the cause of action. U.S. Oil & Ref. Co. v. Department of Ecology, 96 Wn.2d 85, 92, 633 P.2d 1329 (1981).
Plaintiff claims that the alleged acts of sexual abuse caused her such emotional trauma that she repressed her memory of the events entirely. She asserts that years after the statute of limitations had expired, therapy triggered her knowledge of the abuse and her recognition that the abuse caused emotional problems she was experiencing as an adult. Plaintiff argues that it would be unfair to preclude her claim because she was unable to discover her cause of action during the applicable limitation period.
We recognize that child sexual abuse has devastating impacts on the victim. However, when a person claims emotional injuries resulting from an intentional tort which she has allegedly remembered only after the statute of limitations has expired, we must seriously consider the potential effects on our system of justice.
Statutes of limitation assist the courts in their pursuit of truth by barring stale claims. A number of evidentiary problems arise from stale claims. See generally Ruth, at 664-65. See also Note, Statutes of Limitations and the Discovery Rule in Latent Injury Claims: An Exception or the Law?, 43 U. Pitt. L. Rev. 501, 512-14 (1982). As time passes, evidence becomes less available. For example, the defendant might have had a critical alibi witness, only to find that the witness has died or cannot be located by the time the action is brought. Likewise, witnesses who observed the plaintiff's behavior shortly after the alleged act may no longer be available. Physical evidence is also more likely to be lost when a claim is stale, either because it has been misplaced, or because its significance was not comprehended at the time of the alleged wrong. In addition, the evidence which is available becomes less trustworthy as witnesses' memories fade or are colored by intervening events and experiences. Old claims also are more likely to be spurious than new ones. "With the passing of time, minor grievances may fade away, but they may grow to outlandish proportions, too." Ruth, at 665. Thus, stale claims present major evidentiary problems which can seriously undermine the courts' ability to determine the facts. By precluding stale claims, statutes of limitation increase the likelihood that courts will resolve factual issues fairly and accurately.
The discovery rule should be adopted only when the risk of stale claims is outweighed by the unfairness of precluding justified causes of action. U.S. Oil, at 93. In prior cases where we have applied the discovery rule, there was objective, verifiable evidence of the original wrongful act and the resulting physical injury. This increased the possibility that the fact finder would be able to determine the truth despite the passage of time, and thus diminished the danger of stale claims. For example, in Ruth v. Dight, supra, we adopted the discovery rule for a medical malpractice action arising from the presence of a foreign substance left inadvertently in a surgical wound. A hysterectomy was performed on the plaintiff in 1944. For a 22-year period following the surgery, plaintiff suffered recurrent abdominal pain. In 1966, plaintiff underwent an exploratory operation during which a sponge was found in her abdomen. After the sponge was removed, her recovery was normal. Ruth, at 662-63. Thus, there was empirical evidence of the occurrence of the alleged act (the initial surgery) and of the resulting harm (discovery of the sponge). In Ohler v. Tacoma Gen. Hosp., 92 Wn.2d 507, 598 P.2d 1358 (1979), we applied the discovery rule to a products liability action against an incubator manufacturer for blindness due to excessive administration of oxygen to the plaintiff when she was a premature infant. There was evidence that plaintiff was placed in an incubator for about 16 days and given oxygen. Her blindness was an objective manifestation of the resulting injury. Ohler, at 508-09. Again, empirical evidence existed of the alleged event and resulting harm. We have also applied the discovery rule to a products liability action for personal injuries resulting from asbestos exposure. Sahlie v. Johns-Manville Sales Corp., 99 Wn.2d 550, 663 P.2d 473 (1983). There was evidence that the plaintiff had worked around asbestos products for almost 40 years, and he was eventually diagnosed as having ashestosis. Sahlie, at 551. The source of plaintiff's injury, continuous exposure to asbestos products, and the resulting harm, asbestosis, were objectively verifiable.
Because of the availability and trustworthiness of objective, verifiable evidence in the above cases, the claims were neither speculative nor incapable of proof. Since the evi-dentiary problems which the statute of limitations is designed to prevent did not exist or were reduced, it was reasonable to extend the period for bringing the actions.
Plaintiff suggests that her claim is identical to the above cases, noting that in those cases, the plaintiffs could not have known of the cause of action until an outside event or a professional's assistance triggered such knowledge. However, in each of the above cases, objective evidence, often accompanied by medical diagnosis, led to the plaintiff's discovery of the wrongful act. In contrast, in the present case, no empirical, verifiable evidence exists of the occurrences and resulting harm which plaintiff alleges. Her claim rests on a subjective assertion that wrongful acts occurred and that injuries resulted. There is no objective manifestation of these allegations. Rather, they are based on plaintiff's alleged recollection of a memory long buried in the unconscious which she asserts was triggered by psychologi cal therapy.
It is suggested that the subjectivity of plaintiff's claim can be eliminated at trial through the testimony of witnesses such as family, friends, schoolteachers and treating psychologists. However, none of this testimony would provide objective evidence that the alleged acts occurred. First, witnesses who knew the plaintiff at the time of the alleged events would be testifying from their memories of her emotional condition and behavior during that period. This would require witnesses to attempt to recall events which occurred between 17 and 26 years ago. Witnesses' recollections of memories usually become less reliable in a matter of minutes, much less years. Thus, the more time had passed, the less trustworthy such testimony would be.
Second, the testimony of treating psychologists or psychiatrists would not reduce, much less eliminate, the subjectivity of plaintiff's claim. Psychology and psychiatry are imprecise disciplines. Unlike the biological sciences, their methods of investigation are primarily subjective and most of their findings are not based on physically observable evidence. The fact that plaintiff asserts she discovered the wrongful acts through psychological therapy does not validate their occurrence. Recent studies by certain psychoanalysts have questioned the assumption that the analyst has any special ability to help the subject ascertain the historical truth. See generally Wesson, Historical Truth, Narrative Truth, and Expert Testimony, 60 Wash. L. Rev. 331 (1985). These studies show that the psychoanalytic process can even lead to a distortion of the truth of events in the subject's past life. The analyst's reactions and interpretations may influence the subject's memories or statements about them. The analyst's interpretations of the subject's statements may also be altered by the analyst's own predisposition, expectations, and intention to use them to explain the subject's problems. Wesson, 60 Wash. L. Rev. at 334-37, 349-50. Thus,
the distance between historical truth and psychoanalytic "truth" is quite a gulf. From what "really happened" to what the subject or patient remembers is one transformation; from what he remembers to what he articulates is another; from what he says to what the analyst hears is another; and from what the analyst hears to what she concludes is still another.
Wesson, 60 Wash. L. Rev. at 338. While psychoanalysis is certainly of great assistance in treating an individual's emotional problems, the trier of fact in legal proceedings cannot assume that it will produce an accurate account of events in the individual's past.
The purpose of emotional therapy is not the determination of historical facts, but the contemporary treatment and cure of the patient. We cannot expect these professions to answer questions which they are not intended to address.
It is proper to apply the discovery rule in cases where the objective nature of the evidence makes it substantially certain that the facts can be fairly determined even though considerable time has passed since the alleged events occurred. Such circumstances simply do not exist where a plaintiff brings an action based solely on an alleged recollection of events which were repressed from her consciousness and there is no means of independently verifying her allegations in whole or in part. If we applied the discovery rule to such actions, the statute of limitations would be effectively eliminated and its purpose ignored. A person would have an unlimited time to bring an action, while the facts became increasingly difficult to determine. The potential for spurious claims would be great and the probability of the court's determining the truth would be unreasonably low.
Given the substantial risks of stale claims in cases of this nature, we conclude that a literal reading of the statutes of limitation strikes the proper balance between the possibility of such claims and the right to bring an action. Under this application of the statutes, the plaintiff had until 3 years beyond the age of majority to bring an action. This provided the plaintiff with a reasonable opportunity to assert a claim while preventing the injustice that would result if the court had to decide the facts long after the alleged events occurred. We, therefore, hold that the discovery rule does not apply to an intentional tort claim where the plaintiff has blocked the incident from her conscious memory during the period of the statute of limitations.
Dore, Andersen, Callow, and Goodloe, JJ., concur.
There is a discrepancy between the stipulation of facts and the complaint regarding the dates of the alleged acts. The stipulation states that the acts occurred through 1969, while the complaint alleges they happened through 1968. Assuming the stipulation correctly states that plaintiff was between the ages of 3 and 11 at the time of the alleged acts, it appears they would have occurred through 1968, since she toned 12 years old in 1969.