It's a battle out there folks against all religious institutions who don't want to take legal responsibility for their actions re sexual abuse in their organizations. There was a setback in Wisconsin yesterday. Whether it be Catholics, Mormons, JWs, or any other religious group, eventually, someone will crack that wall protecting the religious institutions from legal liability.
http://www.madison.com/archives/read.php?ref=tct:2005:07:13:482432:FRONT
Victims: Door Opens On Priest Abuse Cases
The Capital Times :: FRONT :: 1A The Wisconsin Supreme Court today unanimously barred a claim of negligence against the Archdiocese of Milwaukee in a case of alleged priest sex abuse, but justices opened the door to revisit, in some future case, its past decisions that abuse survivors say have closed the courthouse doors to them for a decade.
Wednesday, July 13, 2005
By Pat Schneider The Capital Times
In a strongly worded concurrence, Justice Ann Walsh Bradley admonished the court majority for dodging the First Amendment and statute of limitation issues that have kept clergy sex abuse claims out of Wisconsin courts since a series of high court rulings in the mid-1990s.
In an opinion joined by Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson and in part by Justice Patience Roggensack, Bradley argues that the court's past rulings do not bar negligence claims against the Catholic Church in allegations of priest sex abuse against children.
In a second concurrence, Justice Louis Butler, with Justice Patrick Crooks joining, said the court does not normally decide constitutional questions if the case can be resolved on other grounds. "These questions have not been resolved, and will have to be addressed in possible future litigation," Butler wrote.
In the case decided today, the court affirmed an appellate court's decision to dismiss a claim by John Doe 67, who said he was sexually abused in the early 1960s at age 13 by the Rev. George Nuedling, now deceased. Doe said he did not realize the role of the church in protecting Nuedling until 2002, when the archdiocese divulged evidence of past sexual abuses by the priest.
While Doe claims that by 2002 at least a half-dozen men had reported claims of sexual abuse by Nuedling to the archdiocese, he never specifically alleged that the archdiocese knew about Nuedling's misconduct in the early 1960s, when Doe said he was abused, Justice David Prosser wrote in the majority opinion. "We therefore conclude that none of Doe's claims is properly pleaded," he said.
Kathleen Hohl, spokesperson for the archdiocese said: "Today's decision affirms our position in the circuit and appellate courts that these cases should be dismissed."
The archdiocese's position is that such claims are barred by the First Amendment, Hohl added.
The court's failure to embrace its past decisions amounts to an invitation for cases that will test that jurisprudence, said Marci Hamilton, a professor of law at Benjamin Cardozo School of Law, who argued Doe's case before the court.
"What the decision says is, 'victims who have evidence of fraudulent concealment of your perpetrator before you were victimized, feel free to come into court,' " Hamilton said.
Clergy abuse survivors planned a press conference this afternoon at Milwaukee City Hall to comment on the decision. "It's a big defeat for this plaintiff, but a victory for victims," said Peter Isely, Midwest coordinator for SNAP, Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. "This is the best time ever in Wisconsin for victims to file cases."
Jeff Anderson, a Minnesota attorney specializing in abuse cases who represented John Doe 67 in the lower courts, said there is "real hope" to be read into the Supreme Court's decision.
"But I have deep fear for the safety of all other children not protected under the law in Wisconsin now," Anderson said.
"The justices are inviting the Legislature to get involved in this and inviting the public and policymakers to follow the lead of the governor," he said.
Gov. Jim Doyle has spoken in support of legislation creating a "window" of time during which clergy abuse claims for which the statute of limitations has expired can be brought into court. Such a provision was dropped from a 2003 law that extended the statute of limitations for those claims.
John Huebscher of the Wisconsin Catholic Conference said today that the Catholic Church's lobbying arm would continue to resist any such "window" for claims. "The statue of limitations provides assurance that people have the opportunity to defend themselves against very old claims. We will continue to assert our constitutional right," he said.
In her concurring opinion, Bradley argues that the courts can evaluate whether the church took the necessary steps to prevent foreseeable harm to children, without entangling itself in church doctrine in violation of the First Amendment.
She distinguishes the Doe case, involving a claim of sexual contact with a child, from the Supreme Court's prior decisions, which involved claims of priest sexual misconduct with adult women. In those cases, "the harm at issue would have required consideration and interpretation of church doctrines, including the vow of celibacy," she said.
A claim of criminal sexual assault against a minor child, in contrast, does not require an examination of church doctrine.
"This court should not allow church officials to be beyond the reproach of the law," Bradley wrote.
In fact, immunizing church defendants risks putting religious institutions in a preferred position over secular institutions, "a concept both foreign and hostile to the First Amendment."
Because Doe's claim is against the church, not Nuedling, the normal guidelines for statute of limitations do not apply, Bradley said.
Doe's allegations arise not out of the moment of sexual attack, but out of the secrecy of the archdiocese, she wrote.
Until priest abuse scandals gained national attention, Bradley wrote, "most victims had no basis for believing that the institutional church was involved."
Wisconsin victims of child molestation by priests are in a strange situation, where courts in other states have allowed claims of child sexual abuse to proceed against the Archdiocese of Milwaukee while theirs cannot, Bradley said, noting cases in California and South Dakota.
"In the end, the majority wastes a golden opportunity today to provide much-needed guidance to this area of the law," Bradley wrote.
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