Case Name: Nancy LINDABURY, Appellant, v. Richard LINDABURY and Donnie Mae Lindabury, Appellees
Court: Florida District Court of Appeal
Jurisdiction: Florida
Decision Date: 1989-09-19
Citations: 552 So. 2d 1117
Docket Number: No. 87-2481
Parties: Nancy LINDABURY, Appellant, v. Richard LINDABURY and Donnie Mae Lindabury, Appellees.
Judges: Before SCHWARTZ, C.J., and BARKDULL and JORGENSON, JJ.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 552
Pages: 1117–1121

Head Matter:
Nancy LINDABURY, Appellant, v. Richard LINDABURY and Donnie Mae Lindabury, Appellees.
No. 87-2481.
District Court of Appeal of Florida, Third District.
Sept. 19, 1989.
Rehearing Denied Dec. 13, 1989.
Stephen Cahen, P.A., and Susan Guller, Stephen Cahen, and Sally Goldfarb, Washington, D.C., for appellant.
No appearance for appellees.
Mathews, Osborne, McNatt & Cobb and Jack W. Shaw, Jr., Jacksonville, for Florida Defense Lawyers Ass’n, as amicus curiae.
Patricia Ireland, Homestead, Sarah E. Burns, Sally F. Goldfarb and Lynn Hecht Schafran, New York City and Washington, D.C., for amici curiae NOW Legal Defense and Educ. Fund, et al.
Before SCHWARTZ, C.J., and BARKDULL and JORGENSON, JJ.

Opinion:
PER CURIAM.
We affirm the trial court's order granting appellees' motion to dismiss with prejudice appellant's verified amended complaint on the ground that the matters alleged occurred more than twenty years ago and are time-barred as a matter of law by section 95.11, Florida Statutes (1987).
Appellant brought an action in 1985, shortly after she sought psychological counseling in the course of which she purportedly "rediscovered" previously repressed or blocked memories of suffering "sexual batteries" by her father beginning in 1955, when she was four, and continuing through 1965, when she was thirteen. In her amended complaint, appellant sought damages from her father as well as from her mother, who, appellant alleged, knew of the sexual batteries but refused to interfere on her daughter's behalf.
The applicable statute of limitations plainly provides that "[a]n action for assault, battery . or any other intentional tort" must be commenced within four years of the time the cause of action accrues, that is "when the last element constituting the cause of action occurs." § 95.11(3)(o); 95.031(1), Fla.Stat. (1987). It is beyond contradiction that the alleged incestuous acts, if taken as true, damaged the appellant at the time they occurred. The last contemporaneous injury is itself sufficient to complete the cause of action and commence the limitations period. Thus, under any conventional application of the statute of limitations, the appellant's cause of action accrued, and the statutory clock began running, no later than 1965. Even if the limitations period were to be tolled during appellant's minority, a point which we by no means concede, see Velazquez v. Metropolitan Dade County, 442 So.2d 1036 (Fla. 3d DCA 1983), rev. denied, 449 So.2d 265 (Fla.1984); but see Drake v. Island Community Church, Inc., 462 So.2d 1142 (Fla. 3d DCA 1984) (Schwartz, C.J., dissenting from denial of rehearing en banc), rev. denied, 472 So.2d 1181 (Fla.1985), such tolling should cease when the reason for it ceases — upon appellant's attaining majority. Here, appellant filed her complaint at the age of thirty-four, some twenty years after the last act of sexual abuse alleged and thirteen years after reaching the age of majority. The action is clearly time-barred as a matter of law.
Affirmed.
SCHWARTZ, C.J., and BARKDULL, J., concur.
. We thank both amici for conducting extensive research and assisting this court in reaching a decision.