## Facts

- Carol Jean Shaw Lord and Harold Elijah Shaw, Jr. were married for nearly 20 years and divorced in October 1978.
- In September 1980, Lord sued Shaw asserting six tort causes of action based on alleged physical and sexual abuse during the marriage.
- The first five causes of action alleged discrete incidents between June 1976 and November 1977, including choking, beating, striking, pushing, and forced sexual intercourse.
- The sixth cause of action alleged an ongoing course of abusive conduct throughout the marriage, characterized as willful and malicious.
- For purposes of summary judgment, the court assumed Lord’s factual allegations were true.
- The trial court granted summary judgment for Shaw, holding the claims were governed by a one-year limitations period for assault, battery, and related torts and were untimely; it also relied on res judicata based on the prior divorce proceeding.

## Issues

1. Whether Utah’s one-year statute of limitations for assault, battery, false imprisonment, and similar torts barred claims filed in 1980 for alleged acts occurring in 1976–1977.
2. Whether the limitations period was tolled because interspousal tort immunity allegedly prevented suit during the marriage.
3. Whether the prior divorce decree barred the later tort action under res judicata because the claims were or should have been litigated in the divorce proceeding.

## Decision

- The Utah Supreme Court affirmed summary judgment for Shaw.
- The court held all six causes of action were barred by the one-year statute of limitations because each claim accrued when the alleged wrongful acts occurred, and the 1980 filing was untimely.
- The court rejected tolling based on interspousal tort immunity, concluding it was not a statutory disability and did not suspend accrual or the running of limitations.
- The court also held the divorce decree precluded the later tort claims under res judicata to the extent the claims arose from operative facts that were or could have been addressed in the divorce case.

## Legal Principles

- Claims for assault, battery, and closely related intentional-tort theories are subject to Utah’s one-year statute of limitations and accrue at the time of the alleged act.
- A plaintiff cannot avoid the applicable limitations period by restyling repeated assaults and batteries as a separate “course of conduct” claim when the substance remains the same intentional tortious acts.
- Tolling applies only for statutory disabilities; interspousal tort immunity is not a listed disability and does not toll limitations absent clear legislative authorization.
- The availability or unavailability of a particular remedy between spouses does not change when a tort cause of action accrues for limitations purposes.
- Res judicata bars later claims between former spouses arising from the same operative facts that were litigated or could have been litigated in the divorce proceeding, where the divorce action could have addressed the controversy.

## Conclusion

The court affirmed dismissal of the ex-wife’s tort suit because the alleged marital assaults and related misconduct accrued when committed and were filed outside the one-year limitations period, and because the prior divorce decree independently barred relitigation of claims arising from the same marital facts that could have been raised in the divorce case.


Lord v. Shaw, 665 P.2d 1288 (Utah 1983)