Court allows split-personality testimony against psychiatrist
PAMELA HUEY / Associated Press
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) -- A Wisconsin woman and another patient with
multiple personalities deserved to testify as their alter egos
against a psychiatrist who sexually abused them, the Minnesota
Court of Appeals says.
The ruling upholds testimony of someone in a "dissociative
state."
Two years ago, the women won a multi-million-dollar judgment from
the estate and insurer of psychiatrist William Routt, who
committed suicide in 1991.
Tuesday's ruling by the appellate court in St. Paul sent the
women's lawsuit against Routt's nurse, Kathy House, back to
Hennepin County District Court.
The women, from St. Paul and Baldwin, Wis., argued that House, as
the doctor's sole nurse and assistant, was aware of the abuse but
failed to intervene or report it.
Both women had numerous personalities, some of whom testified at
the 12-week trial in July, August and September 1995. Both women
had been victims of sexual abuse before seeing Routt, according
to court papers.
They testified that Routt took advantage of them and their mental
fragility during therapy sessions. Routt would hypnotize them or
call for their alter personalities, sexually abuse them and swear
them to secrecy while the women were in their dissociative state,
the appeals court ruling said.
One personality, 4-year-old Elizabeth, testified that when she
was nervous or scared about touching Routt as he directed, he
would "put a needle in me and then I wasn't as scared anymore,"
the court ruling said.
Another personality, 10-year-old Anne, testified that Routt drank
alcohol during therapy.
House challenged the reliability of the testimony because she
said the women were in a hypnotic state each time they became a
different personality.
But the appeals court said the women were not under hypnosis and
the trial judge was correct to find the women "sufficiently
competent" to testify.
The women named House in their original lawsuit because they said
she violated the Minnesota Vulnerable Adult Act by not reporting
Routt's abuse. At the trial, House denied having any knowledge of
inappropriate conduct by Routt or that he drank on the job.
The women's attorney, Sheila Engelmeier, said she hopes the case
can be tried sometime in the next year, calling House's conduct
"egregious" and a violation of her ethical responsibility as a
nurse.
The appeals court cited a Georgia court case where a victim of
childhood sexual abuse was allowed to testify in a dissociative
state over the objection of the defendants. Engelmeier said that
is the only other civil case where such testimony has been
allowed.
(c) Copyright 1997 Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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