COLORADO
Denver Post
By Eric Gorski
Denver Post Staff Writer
With a judge's decision Friday that clergy sexual-abuse lawsuits against the Denver Roman Catholic Archdiocese should be argued in state court, the legal battle is about to shift.
Among the developments expected in the coming months: attempts by lawyers for the alleged victims to obtain priests' personnel files and testimony from top church leaders.
Another key argument will center on whether the more than two dozen lawsuits filed in recent months deal with events so old that the statute of limitations has passed, lawyers say.
U.S. District Judge Lewis Babcock on Friday turned away the archdiocese's attempts to move the lawsuits from state court, where they were filed, to federal court.