MICHIGAN
Detroit Free Press
December 23, 2004
BY JIM SCHAEFER
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
In a ruling that could stop lawsuits involving old allegations of sexual abuse by clergy in Michigan, a divided state Court of Appeals said Wednesday a man who claimed abuse in the 1970s cannot sue because he waited too long.
Lawyers for plaintiffs and victims' advocates decried the ruling, which they said puts Michigan behind states such as California, where legislative changes have allowed victims of decades of abuse by Catholic priests to file lawsuits.
The appeals court ruling upholds Michigan's statute of limitations, which requires victims in such cases to sue within three years of the abuse.
"What some judges don't understand is that many, many victims deny and minimize what happened and don't even understand they've been hurt," said David Clohessy, the St. Louis-based national director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.
"It's only after the fourth failed marriage and the fifth DUI and the sixth bar fight that we begin to understand those horrible childhood incidents still cause us suffering and self-destructive behavior."
Posted by kshaw at December 23, 2004 08:19 AM