Supreme Court Sets Molestation Decision Aside : Law: A father was sued for alleged sex act that his daughter repressed from memory for 20 years. The justices may be awaiting proposed state legislation on the right to file such suits.

The state Supreme Court on Thursday set aside a precedent-setting appeal court ruling that allowed a woman to sue her father for sexual molestation she allegedly suffered as a child but repressed from memory for 20 years.

In a brief order, the high court agreed to review a challenge to the ruling brought by the woman’s father. But the justices also told lawyers to defer the filing of additional briefs--an action that suggested the court, before issuing a final ruling, may be awaiting the outcome of proposed state legislation to clarify the right to file such suits.

The appellate ruling, issued last November by a state Court of Appeal in San Jose, said such suits were permissible--even when filed long after the normal legal deadline--when the victim had blotted the events from the mind until recently.

Had the high court denied review, the appellate ruling would have become binding on trial courts throughout the state.

“We were very much hoping the court would allow the ruling to become final,” said Mary R. Williams of Oakland, a lawyer for the woman in the case. “But if the legislation passes, it would mean people like our client could bring this kind of case.”

A lawyer for the father in the case declined comment.

The case presented a sharp conflict between the father’s bid for protection against outdated allegations that are difficult to contest and his daughter’s claim to damages because of abuse suffered but repressed for years.

The appeals panel held unanimously that it would be “most unfair” not to allow the woman’s suit to proceed--even though she had not yet presented independent corroboration that the molestations actually occurred or provided expert testimony to back her claim of repressed memory.

The suit was brought in 1986 in Santa Clara Superior Court by a 24-year-old woman identified only as Mary Doe, seeking damages for sexual abuse by her father, identified as John Doe. Court records have been sealed and attorneys declined to say whether the father had denied the allegations of molestation.

The woman charged that she had been molested from her infancy until she was 5 years old but that she had erased the acts from her memory until she began undergoing psychological therapy as an adult in 1985.

Mary Doe claimed that the molestations had caused her to suffer from low self-esteem, drug and alcohol abuse, sexual promiscuity and suicidal tendencies.

The father sought dismissal of the suit, pointing out that the statute of limitations for such cases expires three years after the alleged injury--or in this instance, three years after the woman became an adult at age 18.

A trial court judge agreed that the suit must be dismissed, but lawyers for Mary Doe, backed by a coalition of civil rights and child-abuse organizations, took the case to the state Court of Appeal. Doe and her backers urged the court to recognize what they said was growing scientific evidence that children molested by their parents may repress the memory for years as a psychological defense against what occurred.

The appeals court, in turn, reinstated the suit, becoming the first appellate panel in California to rule that an exception to the statute of limitations can be made in cases of repressed memory.

In cases such as Mary Doe, the statute should take effect at the point the plaintiff recalls the alleged abuse--not when it occurs, the court said.

In their subsequent appeal to the state Supreme Court, lawyers for John Doe argued that the mere “lack of memory” could not serve as a basis for an exception to the legal deadline for filing such suits. The daughter, they said, had presented no evidence that the theory she advanced about repressed memory was generally accepted in the scientific community.