Held v. State Farm Ins. Co.Held v. State Farm Ins. Co.
Robert W. Morgan, Dick S. Felder, Baton Rouge, for plaintiff-appellant Stephanie Held.
Hank S. Hannah, Baton Rouge, for defendant-appellee State Farm Fire and Cas. Co.
E. Trent McCarthy, Baton Rouge, for defеndant-appellee Roy Scott Held.
Stephanie Held (plaintiff) filed this suit on October 26, 1990, against her father, Roy Scott Held (Held), and his homeowners liability insurer, State Farm Insurance Company, for damages arising from alleged sexual molestation which began when she was twelve years old and continued until she was eighteen.
Both defendants filed separate peremptory exceptions of prescription. The trial cоurt, with oral reasons for judgment, dismissed plaintiff‘s suit as to both State Farm and Held. Plaintiff has appealed.
FACTS
Plaintiff was born on October 28, 1969. She testified in deposition Held began sexually molesting her when she was twelve years old and continued this conduct until the summer of 1988 when she was eighteen years old. Specifically, she testified it stopped on August 21, 1988, when she moved into Miller Dormitory at Louisiana State University for her second year of collеge. About this time, plaintiff and her family were getting psychological help because of an unrelated matter by Stacy Hockstader of the Exxon Health Advisory Program, an employee assistance agency. On September 16, 1988, on her third visit, plaintiff told Hockstader she had been sexually abused by her father. Hockstader counseled plaintiff for her problem through December 1988 and then referred her to Virginia Dark, a clinicаl social worker. She was still seeing Dark on the date of her deposition, March 22, 1991.
Plaintiff‘s description of the abuse she allegedly received from her father was poignantly pathetic and tragic: it began during the summer of 1982, between her seventh and eighth grades; Held worked twelve-hour shifts so was home during the day while plaintiff‘s mother was at work. Plaintiff said he began by “touching me differently ... he hugged me a little closer and started touching my breаsts ... he told me that I was maturing into a young woman, and that he was going to be able to show me what my body would be able to do, and we were going to have a special father/daughter relationship.”
When plaintiff cаme home during her first year at LSU, she told Held she did not want to continue the relationship because she did not like it. She told him she wanted “to save myself for whenever I got married.” Notwithstanding, it continued because “[w]henevеr he wanted anything, I couldn‘t resist.” She stated he dominated her by sexual abuse and also by financial control: “Come that spring of ‘88, they didn‘t pay tuition, room and board, and have not paid anything since then.”1 Her parents agreed to pay for her counseling and did so until the fall of 1990 when they wanted her to sign a “written agreement.” It was only then plaintiff began to look into her legal options. She paid for a September 1990 workshop after her parents refused and then sent them the bill which they never paid.
And what about the therapy? Virginia Dark testified by deposition she had treated plaintiff since December 1988 for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) cаused by sexual abuse. Dark felt plaintiff lived with a great deal of guilt over the situation; that part of the healing process requires anger, which is very difficult when the perpetrator is the parent of the victim; that when a person cannot get angry, he/ she protects the perpetrator; that when plaintiff confronted her parents in September 1988, she took the first step in the process of working through her trauma; that the trauma inflicted upon her damaged her emotional development and made it very difficult to make adult decisions; and that it was only the summer of 1990 plaintiff began to place responsibility on her father and not fеel guilty herself.
Michael B. Atkinson, a clinical psychologist at the Louisiana State University Health Center, saw plaintiff in group therapy sessions from January 1989 until May 1991. Atkinson testified by deposition that his diagnosis was post-traumatiс stress disorder and family problems; that plaintiff
LAW
Prescription runs against a minor, unless an exception is established by legislation. The law applicable to plaintiff,
At first blush, it might appear organic brain injury is more disabling than a PTSD. We disagree. The “unable to act” test should not depend upon the disability‘s label but its effect upon plaintiff. Here, the complеtely unrebutted evidence paints a sad picture of an abused young woman struggling almost desperately to regain her human equilibrium while facing a most hostile family environment. Initially her parents paid for therapy, but this was while she was still struggling with the guilt phase and her role in this matter. Only after she successfully overcame this impediment to recovery did she accept in her own mind she was truly an innocent victim. At that time (summer/fall 1990), she placed the sole guilt on her father.
Additionally, plaintiff‘s parents discontinued payment of her tuition and other college expenses immediately after the confrontation, and, even though they did pay for therapy for some period of time, it was only because it was covered by insurance, and eventually even this support was stopped. This degree of financial domination
In Corsey, the supreme court enumerated three categories of situations in which the early jurisprudence held that contra non valentem was applicable:
so as to prevent the running of liberative prescription: (1) Where there was some legal cause which prevented the courts or their officers from taking cognizance of or acting on the plaintiff‘s action; (2) Where there was some condition couрled with the contract or connected with the proceedings which prevented the creditor from suing or acting; and (3) Where the debtor himself has done some act effectually to prevent the creditоr from availing himself of his cause of action.
375 So.2d at 1321 (footnotes and emphasis deleted).4
The facts compel us to recognize two categories of contra non valentem, i.e., (2) and (3). Plaintiff‘s post-traumatic stress disorder prevented her from acting until she knew she was completely innocent and her father was solely responsible, triggering the sеcond category. Her parents’ refusal to pay for her therapy triggers the third category. We find the combination of these two factors makes contra non valentem applicable here, and prescription begаn to run only in the fall of 1990; therefore plaintiff‘s suit was timely filed.
We find the case of Bock v. Harmon, 526 So.2d 292 (La.App. 3d Cir.), writ denied, 531 So.2d 275 (La.1988), another sad case of child abuse by a father, inapplicable to the facts. Specifically, the court found that Fred Bock‘s embarrassment and fear of the attendant publicity that would surround his lawsuit was not sufficient to trigger application of contra non valentem, especially since he, after attaining majority, was free to move out but chose to stay in his father‘s house because it was convenient. Here, plaintiff was a minor most of the time and did move out just as soon as she could realistically do so after attaining majority and sued her father only when he stopped paying for her therapy.
Likewise, Doe v. Ainsworth, 540 So.2d 425 (La.App. 1st Cir.), writ denied, 542 So.2d 511 (La.1989), is inapplicable on the facts. This case involved sexual abuse by a minister against a minor member of the church, but there was no evidence disclosing any action by defendant which legally or practically stopped plaintiff from filing suit.
For the reasons stated, we reverse the decision of the trial court sustaining defendant‘s exception of prescription, and we remand this case for further proсeedings. Costs of this appeal are taxed to defendants.
REVERSED AND REMANDED.
EDWARDS, J., concurs in the result.
Notes
Plaintiff asked us to applyAn action by [a] person against a pаrent or caretaker for infliction of abuse during minority is subject to a liberative prescription of three years. This prescription commences to run from the day the person attains majority.
A caretaker has the same meaning as provided in Article 3469.
* * * * * *
Section 2. This Act shall be applicable to all persons who attain majority on or after the effective date of this Act.