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Lovelace v. Keohane2/11/1992
Rehearing Dismissed April 20, 1992.
MARIAN E. LOVELACE, PLAINTIFF-APPELLANT,
v.
FATHER DANIEL C. KEOHANE, INDIVIDUALLY, AND AS AGENT AND EMPLOYEE OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC ARCHDIOCESE OF OKLAHOMA CITY AND THE ROMAN CATHOLIC DIOCESE OF TULSA; THE ROMAN CATHOLIC ARCHDIOCESE OF OKLAHOMA CITY, AND THE ROMAN CATHOLIC DIOCESE OF TULSA, DEFENDANTS-APPELLEES.
Glenn R. Beustring & Associates, Gregory P. Williams, Tulsa, for plaintiff-appellant.
Covington & Poe, James E. Poe and Stephen R. Clouser, Tulsa, for defendant-appellee, Father Daniel C. Keohane.
Knight, Wagner, Stuart, Wilkerson & Lieber, Stephen C. Wilkerson, Tulsa, for defendants-appellees, Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Okla. City and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Tulsa.
The opinion of the court was delivered by: DOOLIN, Justice.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit has certified a two-part question of state law wherein the decisive issues are: 1) whether a "multiple personality disorder" (MPD) constitutes a legal disability thus tolling the statute of limitations in a personal injury action, and 2) whether the discovery rule tolls the statute of limitations in an alleged clergical negligence case wherein the victim had no conscious knowledge of the incidents until psychotherapy triggered recollection of the sexual abuse? Under the factual allegations tendered for review in this case of first impression, we answer both questions in the negative.
FACTUAL ALLEGATIONS
Plaintiff/appellant Marian E. Lovelace (Lovelace) was sexually abused by her biological father from the time she was an infant until she was approximately fourteen years old. As a result of the incestuous abuse and as a self-protecting measure, Lovelace developed a MPD, which was not diagnosed until 1980, when Lovelace was about 32 or 33 years old. During the odious periods of sexual abuse, Lovelace regressed into a "passive, trancelike state," and would become "childlike in nature." Lovelace's dominant "host" personality, "Marian," repressed all memory of the acts of abuse while she was a minor.
At about the age of 19, following her father's death in 1967, Lovelace's psychological repression broke down, and she sought counselling from Defendant-appellee Father Daniel C. Keohane, (Father Keohane), concerning the incestuous abuse committed by her deceased father. At this time of her life, "underlying sexual feelings towards boys were beginning to stir in Marian's conscious personality, she felt guilty about these feelings and desires, because they were in conflict with her Roman Catholic faith and teachings of the Church." Additionally, Lovelace "had deep rooted confusion, anxieties and terrorizing fears about any sexual touching of her body."
During the next three years, from the fall of 1967 until late 1970, Lovelace alleged she was sexually seduced by Father Keohane during counseling sessions. Lovelace alleged that Father Keohane's sexual misconduct began with fondling and gradually proceeded to an illicit relationship. As a source of refuge, Lovelace retreated back into her `childlike' sub-person alities during the incidents of sexual abuse by Father Keohane. Lovelace's dominant host personality would not remember or recall the incidents of sexual abuse.
Approximately one year after Father Keohane commenced his alleged sexual molestations of Lovelace, "some of her alter-personalities attempted to take her life on several occasions." As a result of her suicide attempts, Lovelace was hospitalized in a psychiatric ward for depression in
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