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	Appeals Court Says Church Abuse Suit Filed Too Late By Peter Smith The Courier-Journal August 8, 2011 http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20110808/NEWS01/308080062/Appeals-court-says-church-abuse-suit-filed-too-late?odyssey=nav|head [GREYWOLF v. ROMAN CATHOLIC DIOCESE OF COVINGTON] Even though the Roman Catholic Diocese of Covington concealed for years what it knew about sexual abuse by a Lexington priest, a plaintiff waited too long to file a lawsuit seeking damages from the diocese, the Kentucky Court of Appeals has ruled. The court upheld a 2010 Fayette Circuit Court ruling that dismissed the lawsuit filed in 2002 by Samuel Greywolf. Greywolf alleged in his suit that when he was a teenager in the 1970s the Rev. John Modica provided him alcohol and marijuana and sexually abused him at a Lexington church rectory. The Court of Appeals opinion, issued Friday said the diocese’s own internal documents confirmed that Modica was a sexual abuser and that church officials kept the matter secret for years. Normally under Kentucky’s statutes of limitations, a plaintiff has until age 19 to file a claim alleging that an organization covered up his or her sexual abuse as a child. But there’s an exception to that rule under a Court of Appeals precedent from a 1998 case — involving the Covington diocese’s coverup of abuse by a different priest, Earl Bierman. Those statutes can be tolled, or suspended, if a plaintiff can prove the organization covered up the abuse so thoroughly that it prevented the plaintiff from learning about its role. The appeals court affirmed that, for a time, the statutes were tolled for abuse by Modica. “The evidence established that the diocese concealed its knowledge of Modica’s behavior no later than June 1975,” the court ruled. That’s when Modica’s supervisor — himself a sexually abusive priest named Leonard Nienaber — reported “numerous instances of abuse by Modica,” the court said. That gave Greywolf years to pursue his claim, the court ruled. But by 1993, there was so much publicity about abuse by Nienaber and Bierman that he could have pursued a claim that his own abuser was also being protected by the diocese, the appeals court ruled. Greywolf told the court that he didn’t pay much attention to the news media. But the appeals court said that didn’t matter because the news was easily obtainable and the law requires a plaintiff to use “ordinary diligence” in pursuing a case. “Even if the diocese concealed Modica’s sexual abuse for a number of years, Greywolf was still under a legal duty to pursue his cause of action when facts or circumstances provided him, or would have provided a reasonable person, notice that a claim may exist,” the appeals court ruled. The Covington diocese previously settled a class-action lawsuit with sexual-abuse victims in 2006 for $85 million, and it reached a $5.2 million settlement in 2003 with other victims. But it challenged Greywolf’s lawsuit both on the statute of limitations claim and on what it said were inconsistencies in his story, according to previous news accounts. Lexington attorney Charles Arnold, representing Greywolf, said he was disappointed in the ruling and was considering whether to appeal to the Supreme Court. A message to the diocese’s lawyer wasn’t returned Monday afternoon. The Covington diocese included Fayette County until the 1988 creation of the Diocese of Lexington. Reporter Peter Smith can be reached at (502) 582-4469.
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