Description
Herald v. Hood was a 1992 civil case in which Julie Herald sued her uncle, Dennis Hood, alleging sexual abuse beginning in 1962 from age 3 through 15. The memory returned while Herald was watching her 4-year-old daughter play with a friend. As a part of the case, Herald presented a taped telephone conversation in which her uncle indicated that she “had been the only one.” Two therapists also testified that at a meeting with Herald in their offices, he admitted sexually abusing her. She was awarded $150,000 in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages (Fields). The Ohio Supreme Court dismissed the appeal, finding that it had been “improvidently allowed”. This case is significant for its convincing corroborative evidence, and for its role in informing Ohio’s statute of limitations rules for civil tort cases based upon delayed discovery of childhood abuse.