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Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
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Woman Failed to Prove Rape During Sleep Study

(CN) - An Ohio woman did not prove that she was sexually assaulted during a sleep study, a state appeals court ruled.

Gloria Findley participated in a study at the Memorial Hospital of Union County Sleep Lab in 2009.

Her sleep was interrupted twice that night: when a lab technician woke her to reattach a lead that had fallen from her leg, and when she requested to use the restroom.

When the study ended, Findley complained that she had heard loud noises in the night. She did not feel rested, and on the ride home, she experienced vaginal discomfort.

According to her testimony, Findley's "vagina (was) bubbling fluids" and she had feelings that were "postcoital in nature."

She said she pulled down her pants at home and found a "milky white discharge" and a pubic hair that she felt belonged to someone else. Findley collected evidence and called her husband.

They went to the hospital and police, and Findley said that she believed that the man conducting the sleep study had raped her. He denied the allegations and offered his DNA to exonerate himself.

In the ensuing months, Findlay had a pair of "flashbacks" about the alleged assault. The test results showed the only DNA inside her belonged to her husband.

Police watched the videotape of the sleep study, which also showed that Findley had not been raped. Still, she filed a lawsuit against the sleep lab and its employees for negligence, assault, battery and medical malpractice.

The hospital fired back with a countersuit for libel, slander, defamation and conspiracy to file a frivolous lawsuit.

The trial court ruled in the hospital's favor, stating that "the evidence favorable to her consists solely of her unsupported testimony concerning her feelings and memories which is contradicted by all the other evidence in the case."

The Third District Ohio Court of Appeals agreed, parrying her arguments that five minutes of the video were missing and that she could have been drugged with insulin, for which she had not been tested.

"Despite this belief, Gloria failed to support this allegation with any evidence. She had the opportunity to test her blood for insulin and/or ether, but failed to do so before the summary judgment proceedings," Judge Stephen R. Shaw wrote on behalf of the Lima-based court.

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