USCA1 Opinion
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UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FIRST CIRCUIT
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No. 95-1962
CHARLOTTE FLANAGAN,
Plaintiff, Appellant,
v.
GARY I. GRANT AND MERCIA GRANT,
Defendants, Appellees.
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ERRATA SHEET
ERRATA SHEET
The opinion of this Court issued on March 27, 1996, is
amended to reflect the following change on the cover sheet:
James B. Krasnoo, with whom Paul J. Klehm and Keith B.
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Hughes were on brief for appellees.
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UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FIRST CIRCUIT
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No. 95-1962
CHARLOTTE FLANAGAN,
Plaintiff, Appellant,
v.
GARY I. GRANT AND MERCIA GRANT,
Defendants, Appellees.
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APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS
[Hon. Reginald C. Lindsay, U.S. District Judge]
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Before
Selya, Circuit Judge,
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Campbell, Senior Circuit Judge,
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and Stahl, Circuit Judge.
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Carmen L. Durso, with whom Mary F. McCabe and Lynne A.
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Tatirosian were on brief for appellant.
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James B. Krasnoo, with whom Paul J. Klehm and Keith B.
__________________ _______________ ________
Hughes was on brief for appellees.
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March 27, 1996
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Per Curiam. Plaintiff-appellant Charlotte Flanagan
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filed this diversity action against her parents, defendants-
appellees Gary and Mercia Grant, in the United States
District Court for the District of Massachusetts on November
12, 1993. Her complaint alleged that her father sexually
abused her for four years, beginning in 1980 when she was
fourteen, and that her mother actively helped to cover up the
abuse and to coerce her to drop charges against him.1
Defendants moved for summary judgment, and, in a well-
reasoned report and recommendation, the magistrate judge
recommended allowing the motion on the ground that the
complaint was time-barred by the applicable three-year
statute of limitations. Flanagan v. Grant, 897 F. Supp. 637
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(D. Mass. 1995). The district court accepted the
recommendation. Plaintiff appeals.
Having considered the record, the parties' briefs,
and oral argument, we essentially agree with the lower
court's reasoning and result and see no need to go over the
same ground in the same detail. See In re San Juan Dupont
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Plaza Hotel Fire Litig., 989 F.2d 36, 38 (1st Cir. 1993).
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The magistrate judge correctly applied the Massachusetts
discovery rule to the facts of this case, taking into account
the controlling Massachusetts cases including the leading
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1. Plaintiff claimed assault and battery, intentional or
negligent infliction of emotional distress, breach of
fiduciary duty, and violation of her civil rights.
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authority, Riley v. Presnell, 409 Mass. 239, 565 N.E.2d 780
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(1991). Since issuance of the lower court's opinion, the
Appeals Court of Massachusetts has handed down another
relevant decision, Phinney v. Morgan, 39 Mass. App. Ct. 202,
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654 N.E.2d 77, rev. denied, 421 Mass. 1104, 656 N.E.2d 1258
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(1995). Phinney gives further support to the magistrate
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judge's view that the limitations period and discovery rule
considered in Riley, a malpractice case, will apply here.2
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It also lends support to the present outcome, in that, in a
fairly analogous situation involving parental incest, summary
judgment was awarded absent plaintiffs' showing of a triable
issue as to whether they or a reasonable person in their
position would have lacked sufficient notice of the cause of
their harm within the applicable time period. See Phinney,
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654 N.E.2d at 81-82.
Focusing, as the lower court properly did, on when
plaintiff knew or had sufficient notice of the cause of her
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2. Plaintiff's attempt to apply retroactively a recent
Massachusetts enactment codifying the discovery rule in cases
of sexual abuse of a minor does not carry her far. Even if
Massachusetts General Laws ch.260, 4C were to apply, as it
became effective December 17, 1993, after plaintiff filed her
complaint but before the answer was filed, cf. Riley, 565
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N.E.2d at 788 & n.3 (looking at whether stage of proceedings
governed by legislative change on tolling had passed), it
appears in the present circumstances to set out substantially
the same standard and criteria announced in Riley.
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harm,3 we agree that the record demonstrates no triable
issue over whether such knowledge or notice may have occurred
only after November 12, 1990 (the relevant date, three years
before the complaint was filed). The record contains a
plethora of undisputed evidence showing plaintiff's early
awareness of distress resulting from her father's abuse. She
filed, withdrew, and later refiled (in October 1990) criminal
charges against her father. She manifested from 1984 onward
her strong desire to escape the repeated abuse (and,
subsequently, to help her sister escape the risk of abuse).
Her own suicidal inclinations in 1984 are linked in her
affidavit with going to the police in that year with her
mother and sisters to protest her father's conduct. Her
psychologist, Dr. Wayment, opined that plaintiff could
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3. Appellant concedes, as the magistrate judge found, that
there is no dispute over the first prong of the discovery
rule, i.e., that plaintiff knew she had been harmed prior to
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November 1990. The sole issue is whether, given Dr.
Wayment's and plaintiff's affidavits relating to her
dissociation -- rendering her unable causally to relate her
psychological injuries to her father's conduct -- plaintiff
or a reasonable person who had been subject to her experience
would have lacked sufficient knowledge until after November
12, 1990 that her father caused her injuries. We believe, in
this regard, that the magistrate judge misspoke in resting
her prong one finding solely on plaintiff's remembrance
before then of "the incestuous acts." Flanagan, 897 F. Supp.
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at 642. The relevant harm referred to in Riley is not simply
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the abusive conduct itself but the psychological injury
therefrom. See Riley, 565 N.E.2d at 786. Here, appellant
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considered suicide and manifested other forms of distress
prior to November 1990, making it clear that she was aware of
the psychological harm prior to then so as to satisfy prong
one of the discovery rule.
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intellectually understand the relationship between her
father's incest and her feelings, although she did not fully
associate emotionally the incestuous conduct with her
feelings until the fall of 1993.
Riley held that even though emotional and
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psychological barriers may prevent a plaintiff from taking
action against an abusive defendant, a plaintiff's knowledge
of a causal association between the abuse and the resulting
psychological harm suffices to trigger the running of the
statute of limitations. Riley, 565 N.E.2d at 787; see also
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Phinney, 654 N.E.2d at 81-82. We think the magistrate judge
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did not err in finding no triable issue here, and are
constrained to agree with her conclusion in this sad case
that "[i]n the case at bar, although plaintiff did not fully
experience the extent of the damage inflicted by her father,
she nevertheless realized that her father was the likely
cause of her injuries prior to November 12, 1990." Flanagan,
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897 F. Supp. at 643.
There is no merit in plaintiff's second argument
that the district court inadequately performed its review
duties because it simply noted its approval on the magistrate
judge's report itself. Plaintiff cites no caselaw or
particular fact supporting her claim and we discern none.
Affirmed.
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