The Volokh Conspiracy - Repressed Memory Lawsuit:

I just came across this eyebrow raiser: "In action arising from defendant's alleged nonconsensual sexual touching of plaintiff merely 50 years [!!!!]before plaintiff filed her complaint, defendant moved in limine to exclude repressed memory evidence. The District Court, Harrington, J., held that validity and reliability of phenomenon of repressed memory has been established [!!!!]." Shahzade v. Gregory, 923 F.Supp. 286 (D. Mass.1996).

The paragraph above is from the West summary; the word "merely" appears gratuitous, and almost seems like editorial commentary by the West editor. In fact, I think the editor meant to write "nearly". Freudian slip?

The opinion is a bit cursory, but the court here seems to have thought that clinical psychiatrists have more insight into the validity of repressed memory theory than do "outsider" researchers, which is precisely backwards.

	[David Bernstein, June 20, 2007 at 7:50pm] Trackbacks Repressed Memory Lawsuit: I just came across this eyebrow raiser: "In action arising from defendant's alleged nonconsensual sexual touching of plaintiff merely 50 years [!!!!]before plaintiff filed her complaint, defendant moved in limine to exclude repressed memory evidence. The District Court, Harrington, J., held that validity and reliability of phenomenon of repressed memory has been established [!!!!]." Shahzade v. Gregory, 923 F.Supp. 286 (D. Mass.1996). The paragraph above is from the West summary; the word "merely" appears gratuitous, and almost seems like editorial commentary by the West editor. In fact, I think the editor meant to write "nearly". Freudian slip? The opinion is a bit cursory, but the court here seems to have thought that clinical psychiatrists have more insight into the validity of repressed memory theory than do "outsider" researchers, which is precisely backwards.