Regina Darlene Hunter, Plaintiff-Appellant v. Ed Brown, Jr., Defendant-Appellee (Tennessee 1997)

Summary

The Tennessee Supreme Court affirmed summary judgment dismissing a childhood sexual abuse action as time-barred. Applying the settled discovery-rule framework, the court held that the plaintiff, who reported the abuse to her caseworker, the perpetrator's wife, and the district attorney general before her June 1982 abortion, knew of her injury and the wrongdoer at the latest by that abortion, so her claim accrued in 1982 and the repressed-memory theory did not delay accrual. Minority tolling under Tenn. Code Ann. § 28-1-106 extended the one-year limitations period only to one year past her eighteenth birthday, rendering her July 15, 1993 filing untimely. The court expressly reserved for another day whether the repressed-memory theory may apply in sexual abuse cases.

Holding

Whether the discovery rule applies to affect the accrual of Hunter's claim based on her alleged repressed memory of the abuse.. The discovery rule does not apply under the circumstances presented: Hunter knew she had been injured and knew the identity of the perpetrator at the latest when she had the abortion in 1982, so her cause of action accrued in 1982 and the facts do not fairly raise the issue of repressed memory.

Whether Hunter's action filed July 15, 1993 was timely under the one-year personal-injury limitations statute as modified by minority tolling.. Because Hunter was a minor when the cause of action accrued, Tenn. Code Ann. § 28-1-106 extended the filing period to one year beyond her eighteenth birthday (October 13, 1985); the action filed approximately eight years after that birthday was time-barred.

Regina Darlene Hunter, Plaintiff-Appellant v. Ed Brown, Jr., Defendant-Appellee

Summary

Holding

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