Cultic Studies Journal, Vol. 13, No. 1, 1996, page 4
Legal Decision: Borawick v. Shay
JOAN S. BORAWICK, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. MORRIE SHAY and CHRISTINE SHAY,
Defendants-Appellees.
BORAWICK v. SHAY
Docket No. 94-7584
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT
1995 U.S. App. LEXIS 29707
December 19, 1994, Argued
October 17, 1995, Decided
PRIOR HISTORY: [*1] Plaintiff-appellant appeals from a final judgment entered on May 10,
1994 by the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut, (T.F. Gilroy Daly, J.),
granting the defendants‟ motion for summary judgment, following an in limine ruling
prohibiting the plaintiff from testifying based on hypnotically refreshed recollections of
sexual abuse.
DISPOSITION: Affirmed.
COUNSEL: HELEN L. McGONIGLE, Brookfield, CT, for Plaintiff-Appellant.
CHARLES W. FLEISCHMANN, Bridgeport, CT (GULASH &FLEISCHMANN, Bridgeport, CT), for
Defendants-Appellees.
JUDGES: Before: VAN GRAAFEILAND, WALKER, and CABRANES, Circuit Judges.
OPINION BY: WALKER
Opinion: Walker, Circuit Judge
This case presents an issue of first impression: the circumstances under which an alleged
victim of sexual abuse may testify as to memories of abuse following therapeutic hypnosis.
Plaintiff-appellant, Joan S. Borawick, appeals from a final judgment entered on May 10,
1994 by the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut (T.F. Gilroy Daly,
District Judge), adopting the recommendations of Magistrate Judge Joan G. Margolis and
entering summary judgment in favor of defendants, Morrie and Christine Shay, whom
Borawick accused [*2] of sexually abusing her as a child. This judgment for defendants
followed an in limine ruling prohibiting the plaintiff from testifying based on hypnotically
refreshed recollections of sexual abuse. Borawick v. Shay, 842 F. Supp. 1501, 1508 (D.
Conn. 1994).
Background
Borawick, who is currently thirty-eight years old and a citizen of California, brought a
diversity tort action alleging that her aunt and uncle, Christine and Morrie Shay, Connecticut
citizens, sexually abused her in the summers of 1961 and 1964, when she visited them at
their home at the ages of four and seven, respectively. At the time, she lived in Seattle.
Borawick had no memory of the alleged abuse for more than twenty years.
During the fall of 1984, Borawick began to experience panic attacks. When they continued,
in the winter of 1985, she sought and received treatment on. five or six occasions with a
psychiatrist, Dr. Irwin Ruben. From April, 1986 through July, 1987, Dr. Anthony Reading, a
clinical psychologist, continued the treatment. In the spring of 1987, she also sought
medical treatment for chronic physical illness with Dr. Ronald Peters, a medical doctor and
part owner of the Pacific Medical [*3] Center (“PMC”) in Santa Monica, California. PMC‟s
clientele was largely composed of people from the entertainment industry.
After reviewing Borawick‟ s medical history of chronic illness, Dr. Peters referred Borawick to
Valerian St. Regis, a hypnotist who worked under Peter‟s supervision, since “problems in
childhood” sometimes cause chronic illness and are susceptible to recall through hypnosis.
Borawick underwent twelve to fourteen hypnotic sessions with St. Regis from the summer of

Cultic Studies Journal, Vol. 13, No. 1, 1996, page 5
1987 through the fall of 1988. Before and immediately following these sessions, she had no
recollection of abuse, much less of any abuse by these defendants.
When deposed in 1993, St. Regis testified that he had no permanent records relating to the
hypnosis of Borawick however, prior to his deposition, he had read a portion of Borawick‟s
deposition. St. Regis maintained that, before hypnotizing Borawick, he had no expectation
of the type of information that the hypnosis would reveal. He explained that he used
“regression therapy” to take Borawick back to the age of between three and five years old.
St. Regis also testified that, in general, instead of using hypnotic suggestion with Borawick,
he asked [*4] broad questions such as “what happened?,” “what do you remember?,” or
“what do you recall?”
St. Regis testified that Borawick revealed under hypnosis that her aunt, defendant Christine
Shay, persuaded Borawick, at age four, to strip and engage in “ritual dancing.” St. Regis
further stated that during hypnosis Borawick described anal object penetration by Christine
Shay, as well as another incident in which her aunt inserted a “cap pistol in [Borawick‟s]
vagina.” St. Regis also testified that during hypnotic sessions, Borawick disclosed that her
uncle, defendant Morrie Shay, anally raped her. St. Regis did not know whether the alleged
anal rape involved penile insertion or object insertion.
St. Regis testified that he did not reveal to Borawick what she had described during the
sessions, because, in his opinion, such revelations would have been “devastating” and
would probably surface in time. Borawick attended her last session with St. Regis in the fall
of 1988.
Borawick testified in her deposition that during the second week of February, 1989, several
months after her final hypnotic session, she experienced her first non-hypnotic memory of
sexual abuse by her father, who [*5] is not a defendant in this case. Following this initial
recollection, according to Borawick, subsequent memories surfaced in “bits and pieces.” Her
first memory concerning defendant Christine Shay allegedly occurred on February 10, 1989.
On that date, Borawick first recalled her aunt vaginally raping her with a pistol. In late 1990
or early 1991, she first remembered an incident when Christine Shay forced “a broomstick
into [Borawick‟s] vagina. “Borawick also stated that she regained memory of being naked in
the presence of her aunt and “having to dance around.”
Borawick testified that her memory of being anally raped by defendant Morrie Shay surfaced
in 1990. In addition to recalling sexual abuse by her father, aunt, and uncle, Borawick also
claims sexual abuse by numerous others, including family members and her father‟s friends.
More detailed references to these individuals and their various “rituals” and other alleged
abusive conduct are described in the sealed portion of the appendix.
On January 24, 1992, Borawick commenced this action, seeking compensatory and punitive
damages from Morrie Shay and Christine Shay for their alleged willful, wanton, and
malicious sexual exploitation [*6] of her in 1961 and 1964. Borawick, 842 F. Supp. at 1501.
Judge Daly denied plaintiff‟s motion to enlarge time for discovery on July 23, 1992. On
November 4, 1992, defendants filed a motion in limine seeking to exclude the plaintiff‟s
testimony. The in limine motion was referred to Magistrate Judge Joan Glazer Margolis.
Borawick‟s second motion to enlarge time for discovery, filed on February 10, 1993, was not
ruled upon.
After an initial ruling on March 24, 1993 that set forth the test the magistrate judge would
follow in deciding the in limine motion and after receiving further written submissions, the
magistrate judge issued a supplemental ruling on May 26, 1993. The ruling recommended
granting the defendants‟ motion in limine to exclude Borawick‟s testimony, principally on the
ground that St. Regis was “not appropriately qualified.” Borawick, 842 F. Supp. at 1508.