Phillips v. Gelpke

At age nineteen, plaintiff Melissa Phillips sued her uncle, John Gelpke,1 for injuries resulting from his sexual abuse that occurred *583when she was between three and eight years old. The jury awarded plaintiff $750,000 in compensatory damages. That verdict was reversed, however, when the Appellate Division accepted defendant’s argument that plaintiffs case never should have advanced to the jury. Phillips v. Gelpke, 382 N.J.Super. 505, 507, 889 A.2d 1108 (App.Div.2006). Plaintiffs case was faulted for not including expert testimony to explain how she came to recall “repressed memories” of…