ACLU Challenges Limitations Law on Incest, Abuse : Daughter, 28, Suing Father Over Alleged Childhood Molestations

Nancy Lozito said it took her years to realize that the mess her life had become--the bewildering depressions, the two violent and ultimately failed marriages, the stretches of unemployment--was rooted in the mess her childhood had been.

And so years after what she describes as an abusive, sexual relationship that produced one child, Lozito filed a lawsuit Tuesday seeking unspecified compensation from her ex-convict father. In doing so, the 28-year-old Los Angeles woman, backed by the American Civil Liberties Union, is challenging the state’s statute of limitations concerning incest and child-abuse victims.

In a press conference at ACLU offices in Los Angeles, Lozito said the suit could help incest victims overcome feelings of “a shared helplessness over really being able to do anything about what has been done to us. . . .”

“It takes so long to realize how you’ve been hurt by what has happened,” she said.

California laws prohibit incest and child-abuse victims from bringing civil actions against parents after the age of 19. Such limits, common throughout the United States, are far too stringent and deprive incest and child-abuse victims of proper legal redress, ACLU attorney Susan McGreivy said. A similar suit is being advanced by the ACLU in Arizona.

“You can’t treat incest victims as if it were a slip-and-fall or a car accident. Life has gotten too complicated for that,” McGreivy said.

The age limit of 19 was intended to discourage “specious” lawsuits, but the ACLU argues that it fails to protect child-abuse victims. An effort last year in the Legislature to extend the limitation to age 26 failed.

The lawyer suggested that incest and child-abuse victims should be able to seek damages under the theory of “delayed discovery” after they recognize “a causal link” between the troubles of the present and the experiences of the past, just as those who suffer health problems because of asbestos exposure are entitled to file suit decades later.

Her voice often wavering and eyes watering, Lozito said her father, Charles Franklin Davis, began molesting her when she was a 7-year-old girl. He was twice arrested on suspicion of incest, the lawsuit states. In one instance he was acquitted and in the second case charges were dropped.

In a brief telephone interview, Davis, who also lives in the Los Angeles area, said he was unaware of the lawsuit.

Davis acknowledged that he had been charged with incest “quite some years back” but neither confirmed nor denied that he had fathered his daughter’s child.

“I dont know where you got the information, but I think maybe I shouldn’t be talking about it,” Davis said.

Lozito said her parents had a stormy marriage, often separating. One day when she was 2 years old, her father packed the family in the car for a trip to Disneyland. But Davis “intentionally rammed the car into an abutment,” apparently trying to kill himself and the entire family, Lozito said. Her mother died, the others were all injured.

Her father was convicted of intentionally swerving the car into the wall and killing his wife, the suit says, and served five years in prison. The young girl lived with an aunt and uncle, “because my father was in San Quentin and my mother was dead.”

Davis allegedly began the incestuous relationship with his 7-year-old daughter when he was freed, manipulating her with threats.

When she was 8, Lozito told a friend about her father’s alleged actions. The friend informed her mother, who in turn notified school officials.

After an investigation, the suit says, Davis was arrested, tried for incest and acquitted. Lozito’s aunt and uncle retained custody of her and, according to the suit, continually accused her of lying.

Seven years later, Davis, while studying law, discovered that he had never lost legal custody of his children. Lozito, then 15, was forced to move back with her father.

“He told me, as part of his brainwashing, that I was the cause of the accident--that me, as a 2-year-old, put my hands over his eyes, saying guess who?” Lozito recalled. “Therefore it was my fault my mother died, and therefore it was my responsibility to replace her.”

He also spoke of the earlier molestations, telling his daughter that it was an acceptable way of expressing love, the suit alleges.

Before long, acts of incest resumed, the suit alleges, with Davis threatening to torture his daughter if she told anyone or tried to run away. Lozito became pregnant with her father’s child and gave birth six weeks after her 16th birthday, according to the suit.

The girl, who is also named as a plaintiff, has not received financial support from her father, the suit alleges.

Lozito told how at 18 she ran away, attempting to support herself and her daughter through jobs at fast-food restaurants. She became depressed and suicidal and eventually returned home, relying on Davis’ “promise to only be a father,” the suit says.

Told Police

The suit says all acts of incest ceased at that point, but Davis continued to emotionally manipulate his daughter. At one point, Davis thwarted his daughter’s attempt to move out by “kidnaping” her daughter, the suit charges. It was then, the suit alleges, that Davis told police that the child was his daughter too.

Davis was then arrested on an incest charge, according to the suit. Lozito, the suit says, “received no sympathy or understanding . . . but was instead chastised by police.” Charges against Davis were dropped, according to the suit, when Lozito refused to testify at Davis’ trial “after the district attorney informed her that she too could be charged with incest.”

Later, as a result of therapy, Lozito said, she came to understand the relationship between her emotional troubles and incest. Her daughter, who Lozito says is aware that her father is also her grandfather, was hospitalized for five months in 1984 for “severe emotional problems, depression and loss of self-esteem,” the suit alleges.

The ACLU attempted to challenge the California statute of limitations for incest once before, McGreivy said. However, that case was settled out of court two years ago before the courts could consider the statute of limitations.

Lozito was selected for the “test case,” McGreivy says, in part because her daughter’s emotional scars illustrate the long-lasting trauma of incest. Compared to some other incest cases she has reviewed, however, McGreivy said Lozito’s “is probably very mild.”