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	Bill to Extend Statute of Limitations in Child Sexual Abuse Cases Withdrawn By Christopher Keating The Hartford Courant May 1, 2010 http://www.courant.com/news/politics/hc-lawmakers-back-off-statute-b.artmay01,0,3215026.story A controversial bill that would have extended the statute of limitations in child sexual abuse cases was officially withdrawn Friday, ending an emotional debate at the state Capitol for this year. The measure's chief proponents couldn't get enough support in the House of Representatives and the Senate for the second straight year, although they promised that they will try again next year. The measure was directly related to the heavily publicized allegations of child sexual abuse against the late Dr. George Reardon, who worked at St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center in Hartford from 1963 to 1993. The bill, though, never mentioned either the hospital or Reardon by name. The measure clearly ranked among the most controversial and emotional bills the legislature faced this year. "I'm happy that it is withdrawn because we thought it was a horrendous bill," said Michael Culhane, a spokesman for the Connecticut Catholic Conference, which represents the bishops at the state Capitol. "The retroactivity of the bill is just terrible. It would be my hope that an effort would be made to resolve these issues, but I'm not part of that process." The bishops had said publicly that passage of the bill could have had a devastating financial effect on the church and parishes throughout Connecticut because both the hospital and the Archdiocese of Hartford have been named as defendants in various lawsuits. "It is a fact that there are seven or eight dioceses across the country that have filed for bankruptcy because of this issue, so that's a possibility, not a fact going forward," Culhane said. "Based on the experience of the church dealing with those dioceses, that was a possibility." Michael Stratton, a trial lawyer who heads a firm handling the cases of about 55 clients in the Reardon case, assailed lawmakers, saying that they had backed off from voting on the bill for political reasons. "Not allowing this to come to a vote is bad public policy," Stratton said in a phone interview. "I think it's an election year, and Democratic leaders didn't want to expose their members to a hard vote. ... Our leadership in the House and Senate doesn't have the courage to do the job. ... This bill was killed by insiders." Even though legislators said they did not have enough sure votes to pass the measure, Stratton said the bill would have passed if a vote had been taken. "We had the win in the House," Stratton said. "We had the votes. We had a 10-, 15-vote plurality, at least, in the House. ... We were told we had the votes in the House, and we were down four in the Senate." In the 151-member House, 76 votes are needed for passage. Legislators said the House count was "around 70" and never as high as the 91 claimed by Stratton. Stratton blamed House Speaker Christopher Donovan, D-Meriden, for failing to bring the bill to a vote on the House floor, saying that he would rather have seen a vote that lost than have no vote at all. But Rep. Beth Bye, D-West Hartford, who co-sponsored the bill, and Rep. Michael Lawlor, D-East Haven, both said emphatically that Donovan had not blocked their efforts and had not prevented the bill from coming to the floor. "Donovan had nothing to do with it one way or another," Lawlor said. "He wasn't involved. In terms of the speaker, absolutely no involvement." When told that Bye had not blamed Donovan, Stratton said, "He's the one who calls items to the floor." Stratton said the Reardon cases are expected to reach the trial stage by March 2011. Cases Stay Alive The bill has now failed in two consecutive years at the Capitol. A version last year never made it out of committee. This year's version was approved 23-20 by the judiciary committee, but highly controversial bills historically need a wider margin of support in the judiciary committee if they are going to be approved by the full legislature. Currently, victims must file a civil lawsuit by the time they turn 48 — 30 years after reaching 18. The bill would have allowed victims of child sexual abuse or assault who were older than 48 to sue under two conditions: someone under 48 must also have filed a lawsuit against the same defendant with similar allegations, and there must be physical or documentary evidence to support the claim, such as photographs. House Republican leader Lawrence Cafero of Norwalk, who has handled zoning cases as an attorney, said the bill was so narrowly written that it would affect only one entity — St. Francis Hospital. "Spot zoning is illegal," Cafero said Friday. "It was carefully crafted to affect one particular case." For example, if a victim had been molested by a doctor at Norwalk Hospital and there were no other pending cases or claims, then "they are shut out from suit" in the bill, Cafero said. "That's wrong." Reardon died in 1998, but in 2007 a homeowner renovating Reardon's former West Hartford home discovered a cache of more than 50,000 photographic slides and 100 movie reels of child pornography. Some groups not directly involved in the Reardon case lobbied against the bill and contributed to its defeat. Among them were the Insurance Association of Connecticut and the American Tort Reform Association, which raised concerns about changing the statute of limitations. The judiciary committee's influential co-chairman, Sen. Andrew McDonald, D-Stamford, voted against the bill at the committee level because of his concern about the statute. The defeat of the bill does not end the cases of the 56 plaintiffs who are aged 48 or older. Plaintiff attorneys are pursuing various legal theories in an attempt to get around the statute of limitations for those cases, but those arguments could be difficult to win. Barbara Blaine, president of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, issued a written statement saying that lawmakers were wrong to oppose the bill. "Even if every single person who was sexually assaulted by Reardon in childhood gets some kind of settlement, that doesn't absolve lawmakers of the duty to protect children by giving victims the chance to warn families about predators through the justice system," Blaine said in the statement. "We commend the courageous and compassionate abuse victims who have worked so long to safeguard the vulnerable and heal the wounded through this legislative effort and hope they will have the strength and persistence to push even harder next session." SNAP noted that, although the word "priest" is mentioned in the group's title, it includes "members who were molested by religious figures of all denominations," including rabbis and Protestant ministers. Sen. Mary Ann Handley, a Manchester Democrat who was a key co-sponsor, said she could not say how many votes she had in the 36-member Senate. "You're running a marathon, not a sprint," Handley said. "I'm retiring, but I'll be back on this issue. I'll tell you that."
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