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maintains that she was abused by Mr. Collier in that she suffered
from constant verbal and mental abuse from Mr. Collier during her
marriage to him. In support of that contention, Ms. Collier
relies on Ms. Stotts’ statement and the unsworn statement of a
psychiatrist, Ronald J. Garson, M.D. (Dr. Garson’s statement).
As for Ms. Stotts’ statement, Ms. Stotts provides her opinion in
that statement that Mr. Collier “caused mental and verbal abuse
to both Sandrus [Ms. Collier] and their son” (Ms. Stotts’ opin-
ion).23 We are unwilling to rely on Ms. Stotts’ opinion, which
we find to be conclusory and lacking in any specificity as to the
facts on which she bases her conclusion. As for Dr. Garson’s
statement, all that statement contains is the following:
Ms. Sandrus Collier has been under my [Dr.
Garson’s] care for treatment of depression since Janu-
ary, 1993. At that time, she was dealing with the
stress of separation and divorce. Subsequently, she
recovered from the depression and is now much improved.
Dr. Garson’s statement makes no reference to Ms. Collier’s having
been abused by Mr. Collier. We do not find that Dr. Garson’s
statement establishes that Mr. Collier abused Ms. Collier during
23According to Ms. Stotts’ statement,
While Sandrus [Ms. Collier] and Clai [Mr. Collier] were
married and even after their separation, Clai caused
mental and verbal abuse to both Sandrus and their son,
Rusty (Clai V). Sandrus began therapy soon after
separating from Clai. She had become a co-dependent of
Clai’s behavior and actions. He had so much control
over her that it was very hard for her to “break away”.
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