Taylor v. Litteer
| Decision Date | 16 May 1996 |
| Docket Number | Civil No. 94-78-SD. |
| Citation | 925 F. Supp. 898 |
| Parties | Christopher TAYLOR v. Robert LITTEER; Boy Scouts of America; Daniel Webster Council, Inc.; First Free Will Baptist Church, d/b/a Gilford Community Church. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of New Hampshire |
Charles G. Douglas, III, Douglas & Douglas, Concord, NH, for Christopher Taylor.
Edward D. Philpot, Jr., Lawson & Philpot, Laconia, NH, for Robert Litteer.
Robert E. McDaniel, Devine, Millimet & Branch, PA, Manchester, NH, for Boy Scouts of America, Daniel Webster Council, Inc.
David Woodbury, Hermann Law Offices, Manchester, NH, for First Free Will Baptist Church.
In this diversity action, plaintiff Christopher Taylor asserts varied tort claims against defendants Robert Litteer, Boy Scouts of America (BSA), Daniel Webster Council, Inc., of the BSA, and the First Free Will Baptist Church, d/b/a Gilford Community Church (GCC or the Church). Said tort claims arise out of the alleged sexual assault of Taylor by Litteer in 1984 when Litteer was Taylor's Boy Scout troop leader.
Presently before the court are defendant GCC's motion to dismiss,1 a motion by defendants BSA and Daniel Webster Council to join in the Church's motion, and defendant Litteer's similar motion to join in the Church's motion. Plaintiff has objected to the motion to dismiss and to each of the motions to join. Both the Church and Litteer have filed reply memoranda to plaintiff's objection directed at GCC's motion to dismiss.
Reserving further elaboration for the Discussion section, infra, the underlying facts of this matter are briefly summarized as follows. Taylor asserts that he, at the age of 11, was sexually abused by defendant Litteer in August 1984. Since that time, plaintiff has described himself as a "depressed person," but never cognitively knew why he was severely down and depressed until a December 1993 counseling session with his therapist, Dr. Joel Freid. It was soon after December 1993 that Taylor, with the assistance of Dr. Freid, made a causal connection between his years of depression and the August 1984 episode of sexual abuse. Plaintiff filed his complaint in this court on February 26, 1994.
The entry of summary judgment is appropriate when the "pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits, if any, show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." Rule 56(c), Fed.R.Civ.P. Thus, the role of summary judgment among the array of pretrial devices is to "pierce the boilerplate of the pleadings and assay the parties' proof in order to determine whether trial is actually required." Wynne v. Tufts Univ. Sch. of Med., 976 F.2d 791, 794 (1st Cir.1992), cert. denied, 507 U.S. 1030, 113 S.Ct. 1845, 123 L.Ed.2d 470 (1993).
Among the guidelines to be followed by the court in assaying the summary judgment record is "to interpret the record in the light most hospitable to the nonmoving party, reconciling all competing inferences in that party's favor." McIntosh v. Antonino, 71 F.3d 29, 33 (1st Cir.1995) (citation omitted). "Nonetheless, a party contesting summary judgment must offer the court more than posturing and conclusory rhetoric." Id. (citations omitted).
The First Circuit has further recognized that "questions anent the applicability and effect of the passage of time on particular sets of facts often are grist for the summary judgment mill." Id. (citing, inter alia, Rivera-Muriente v. Agosto-Alicea, 959 F.2d 349, 352 (1st Cir.1992)). As such, "when a defendant moves for summary judgment based on a plausible claim that the suit is time barred, the onus of identifying a trial-worthy issue customarily falls on the plaintiff." Id. (citing Morris v. Government Dev. Bank of Puerto Rico, 27 F.3d 746, 748 (1st Cir.1994)).
Defendant GCC moves to dismiss the instant action on the ground that plaintiff is barred from bringing same due to the limitations period set forth in New Hampshire Revised Statutes Annotated (RSA) 508:4, I, and 508:8 (1983 and Supp.1994). Defendants Litteer, BSA, and Daniel Webster Council move to join in such motion, see documents 71, 73, and such permission is herewith granted.
In counterargument, Taylor maintains, consistent with the position taken in his opposition to the defendants' prior motions on this issue, that the pertinent statute of limitations was tolled in this case under the discovery rule.
Plaintiff essentially argues that the instant motion to dismiss should be denied in order to harmonize the disposition of same with the court's prior rulings of October 24, 1994, and December 20, 1994. Plaintiff's Objection ¶ 6. "Judges in ongoing proceedings , however, normally have some latitude to revisit their own earlier rulings." United States v. Lachman, 48 F.3d 586, 590 (1st Cir.1995); see also Commercial Union Ins. Co. v. Walbrook Ins. Co., 41 F.3d 764, 770 (1st Cir.1994) () (citation omitted).
"Thus, the court may reconsider previously decided questions in cases in which there has been an intervening change of controlling authority...." Leslie Salt Co. v. United States, 55 F.3d 1388, 1393 (9th Cir.), cert. denied sub nom., Cargill, Inc. v. United States, ___ U.S. ___, 116 S.Ct. 407, 133 L.Ed.2d 325 (1995); see also N.L.R.B. v. Coca-Cola Bottling Co., 55 F.3d 74, 77 (2d Cir.1995) (same). Recent decisions from the New Hampshire Supreme Court have altered the focus of inquiry in "discovery rule" cases such that the court is compelled to reconsider the issue as it applies to the instant set of facts.
Whereas "a cause of action ... arises once all of the necessary elements are present," Conrad v. Hazen, 140 N.H. 249, 252, 665 A.2d 372, 374 (1995), a "'cause of action does not accrue until the plaintiff discovers, or in the exercise of reasonable diligence should have discovered, both the fact of an injury and the cause thereof," id. at 251, 665 A.2d at 375 (quoting McCollum v. D'Arcy, 138 N.H. 285, 286, 638 A.2d 797, 798 (1994)).2
In 1986, the legislature amended the statute of limitations for personal actions.3 The new statute codified the discovery rule but reduced the limitations period to within three years "of the time the plaintiff discovers, or in the exercise of reasonable diligence should have discovered, the injury and its causal relationship to the act or omission complained of." RSA 508:4, I (Supp.1994) (post-1986 statute). The amended statute applies "to all causes of action arising on or after July 1, 1986." Laws 1986, 227:22, II.
Id. at 251, 665 A.2d at 374; see also McLean, supra note 3, 769 F.Supp. at 30-31 ( legislative revisions).
Accordingly, "a plaintiff who alleges an injury based on a defendant's conduct that occurred prior to July 1, 1986, but where either the injury or its cause was not discovered until sometime after that date, would have the benefit of the six-year statute of limitations and the common law discovery rule." Id. at 252, 665 A.2d at 375. In so holding, the court thus de-linked the determination of the appropriate limitations standard from the (more complex) determination of accrual date, focusing instead on "the time when the act occurred...." Id.
Insofar as defendant's conduct allegedly took place in 1984, the court finds and rules that, without the aid of the discovery rule, the six-year limitations period here controls. However, given Taylor's disability of infancy at the time of the alleged incident, and again without the benefit of some tolling mechanism, the limitations period for the instant cause of action would have expired on February 18, 1993, two years after plaintiff's eighteenth birthday. See RSA 508:8.
New Hampshire "first developed the discovery rule as a method of tolling the statute of limitations `to facilitate the vindication of tort victims' rights.'" McCollum, supra, 138 N.H. at 286, 638 A.2d at 798 (quoting Heath v. Sears, Roebuck & Co., 123 N.H. 512, 523, 464 A.2d 288, 294 (1983)). The discovery rule requires "`that the interests of the opposing parties be identified, evaluated and weighed in arriving at a proper application of the statute of limitations.'" Rowe v. John Deere, 130 N.H. 18, 23, 533 A.2d 375, 377 (1987) (quoting Shillady v. Elliot Community Hosp., 114 N.H. 321, 325, 320 A.2d 637, 639 (1974)). Thus, bound up within the discovery rule is an inherent policy consideration "concerned with `the unfairness which would result to a plaintiff blamelessly ignorant of his injury whose action would be cut off before he was aware of its existence.'" Id. at 22-23, 533 A.2d at 377 (quoting Shillady, supra, 114 N.H. at 323, 320 A.2d at 638).
Plaintiff's Memorandum of Law at 8-9. In plaintiff's view, because he "did not know or understand that there was any connection between being assaulted as a minor by Robert Litteer in 1984 and his feelings of low self-esteem and depression during his late teenage years," id. at 9, the discovery rule should apply to toll the statute of limitations.
The foregoing analysis merely serves as a prelude to the precise issue before the court: Is an individual in plaintiff's position entitled to invoke the...
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Taylor v. Litteer
...addressed, and dismissed, plaintiff's argument concerning claimed constitutional deficiencies in RSA 508:8. See Taylor v. Litteer, 925 F.Supp. 898, 905 & n. 8, (D.N.H.1996). Plaintiff's attempt to reargue his position on this issue neither presents newly discovered evidence nor clearly esta......