17 - Commentary on Simpkins v. Grace Brethren Church of Delaware, Ohio

Summary

Simpkins v. Grace Brethren Church of Delaware, Ohio involved a state constitutional challenge to Ohio’s law limiting damages for emotional harm, brought by a teenager who was raped by her pastor. The Ohio Supreme Court rejected her argument that the law as applied to minor sexual assault victims violated equal protection and the right to jury trial. The rewritten feminist opinion uses feminist scholarship demonstrating the disparate impact of damage caps on sexual assault victims to conclude that the law deprives minor sexual assault victims of such a substantial portion of their damages compared to other injury victims that it does violate equal protection and the right to jury trial. The accompanying commentary surveys tort reform damage cap laws and notes how feminist scholarship and the growing awareness of the institutional cover-up of sexual abuse can influence legislatures and courts to ameliorate the effect of these laws.