Case brief summary
Assault and battery claims must be filed within one year, but emotional distress claims can be filed within three years. Defendants can raise a time limit defense through a motion before filing a formal answer.
Facts
A 31-year-old man had a relationship involving sex, alcohol, and marijuana with the defendants' 17-year-old daughter. The girl's parents lured him to a rural area, where masked men beat him, threatened to castrate or kill him, and finally told him he would be killed unless he left the state. He sued more than a year later but less than three years later, claiming intentional infliction of emotional distress.
Procedural history
The trial court dismissed the case before defendants filed an answer, ruling it was really about assault with only a one year deadline. The Court of Appeals agreed. The plaintiff appealed to the state Supreme Court.
Issue
Could defendants raise the time limit defense without filing an answer first, and was this really just assault barred by one year, or could it also be a longer emotional distress claim?
Holding
Defendants could raise the time limit defense early. The beatings were assault and barred by one year, but the threat of future death supports an emotional distress claim under the three year limit, only against the husband.
Reasoning
Assault requires fear of immediate harm, but a threat about future harm is not an assault, so it falls instead under intentional infliction of emotional distress, which has a longer filing deadline. Although the earlier beatings happened more than a year before the lawsuit and cannot support damages on their own, they can be used as background to show how outrageous the final future threat was and how much distress it caused. The court also clarified that this emotional distress claim does not require proof of a separate physical injury. As for the wife, the evidence only showed she was present and then left before the worst conduct occurred, which was not enough to show she had agreed to a plan to intentionally cause emotional distress.
Opinions
Majority (Exum): Threats of future harm are not assault and can instead support an emotional distress claim with a longer time limit, so the case against the husband should continue, but not against the wife.