Repressed memory lawsuit tests wide-open area of Indiana law

INDIANAPOLIS -A Porter County jury will venture this month into a controversial intersection of law and psychology that Indiana courts have barely explored -repressed memories of childhood sexual abuse.

A 50-year-old Culver woman whose case is going to trial 11 years after she sued alleges an employee of a Valparaiso children's home assaulted and abused her at least 50 times, once impregnating her.

The alleged abuse occurred while Teri Throneberry was a ward at the privately run Shults-Lewis Child and Family Services home in the 1960s.

Her attorney said it wasn't until 1990 that Throneberry's memories were triggered through conversations with other former residents of the home, including a now deceased woman who also claimed to have been abused.

Throneberry's Indianapolis lawyer, Gregory Bowes, expects the trial set to start Sept. 17 to be closely watched by others contemplating lawsuits alleging repressed memories of child sexual abuse.
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If the verdict is appealed, whatever ruling emerges could go far to set a precedent for handling such cases in Indiana, said James A. Tanford, an Indiana University law professor and an expert on law and psychology.

While cases of repressed memory of child sexual abuse are not new in Indiana courts -pretrial issues in Throneberry's lawsuit, for example, have twice come before the Indiana Supreme Court -the state's high court and appellate court have offered judges little guidance.

"There is no precedent one way or the other on repressed memories," Tanford said. "In my opinion, it is up in the air."

Indiana Supreme Court rulings on the issue so far have been "cautious and conservative," involving only rules of evidence and other narrow legal questions, Tanford said.

"They have not decided any case yet on the admissibility of repressed memory," he said.

Unresolved questions in Indiana include whether to allow expert testimony on the reliability of repressed memory, and whether normal statutes of limitation should apply in the filing of such lawsuits. In Indiana, complaints alleging abuse of a child normally must be filed within two years after a plaintiff turns 18.

While nearly half the 50 states have laws giving plaintiffs time beyond normal statutes of limitation to file repressed memory lawsuits, Indiana has no such law.

Steve Strawbridge, an Indianapolis attorney representing the children's home, said he will seek to cast doubt on the reliability of repressed memories.

Bowes, meanwhile, must prove it was possible for Throneberry to repress memories of abuse for more than two decades.

Advocates of the concept argue that victims of childhood trauma can block out painful memories for decades but that those memories are often recovered, sometimes through therapy.

Critics regard repressed memory as bad science. They argue that such memories are often implanted by therapists or others.

At this month's trial, one issue that could be raised for the first time in Indiana is whether the plaintiff is legally competent to testify as to her memories, Tanford said. Plaintiffs must show the memories are genuinely theirs and were not suggested by others.

Throneberry also must show that repressed memories can be deemed "reliable" -an issue no Indiana court has directly addressed.

In its rulings so far, the Indiana Supreme Court "has relied quite heavily on the published scientific literature," Tanford said.

"The weight of scholarly opinion within the fields psychology and law is that these recovered memories are factually unreliable," he said.
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