## Facts

- Nancy Louise Tyson alleged her father, Dwight Robert Tyson, committed repeated sexual assaults against her from 1960 to 1969, when she was ages 3 to 11.
- Washington limitation periods were generally 3 years for personal injury and 2 years for assault and battery, with tolling during minority until the plaintiff turned 18.
- Nancy asserted the assaults caused severe trauma leading her to repress all memory of the abuse throughout the limitations period.
- In 1983, during psychological therapy, she alleged she first remembered the abuse and recognized its causal connection to her adult emotional problems.
- She filed an intentional tort civil action in federal court in 1983, at age 26, beyond the limitations periods as calculated from the acts with minority tolling.
- The parties presented the matter on stipulated facts for the purpose of resolving how the statute of limitations applied.

## Issues

1. Whether Washington’s discovery rule tolls the statute of limitations for intentional torts when the plaintiff alleges the events were completely repressed from conscious memory during the entire limitations period.

## Decision

- The Washington Supreme Court answered the certified question “no.”
- The court held the discovery rule does not toll the statute of limitations for intentional tort claims based solely on alleged repressed memory of the tortious acts throughout the limitations period.
- The court’s answer indicated the claims were time-barred under the applicable limitation statutes and minority-tolling provision, and the matter returned to federal court for proceedings consistent with that ruling.

## Legal Principles

- Statutes of limitation protect defendants from stale claims where evidence may be lost, memories fade, and witnesses become unavailable.
- The discovery rule is a limited exception and is generally applied where a claim could not reasonably be discovered and where the delay-related prejudice is reduced by objective, ascertainable proof of the wrong and injury.
- For intentional tort claims of childhood sexual assault premised on long-delayed recollections recovered in therapy, the absence of independent, objective corroboration weighs against applying discovery-rule tolling.
- Extending the discovery rule to claims resting largely on subjective recollection after lengthy delay risks effectively nullifying legislatively chosen limitation periods for that category of claims.

## Conclusion

Washington’s discovery rule did not toll the limitations period for an intentional tort claim where the plaintiff alleged she repressed all memory of childhood sexual abuse until adulthood; accordingly, the action was barred by the statutes of limitation as applied with minority tolling.


Tyson v. Tyson, 727 P.2d 226 (Wash. 1986)