Lift on Statute of Limitations Spurs More Clergy Abuse Cases

By David Unze
The St. Cloud Times
January 12, 2014

http://www.sctimes.com/article/20140112/NEWS01/301120014/Lift-statute-limitations-spurs-more-clergy-abuse-cases?nclick_check=1

The rise in the number of clergy sex abuse lawsuits filed since June is tied to a state law passed last year.

The Minnesota Child Victims Act eliminates for three years the six-year civil statute of limitations for lawsuits alleging the sexual abuse of minors. It allows now-adult victims of sexual abuse a three-year window to file a lawsuit regardless of when the abuse happened.

It means that lawsuits that typically would have been dismissed or not filed at all because of the statute of limitations can proceed through the court process.

The law went into effect June 1, 2013; less than one week later a Sauk Rapids man filed suit against a St. John’s Abbey priest for abuse that he said happened in 1977.

Other lawsuits alleging abuse decades ago have been filed since the passage of the Child Victims Act and more are sure to come.

“This recognizes that, with this type of abuse, that people often take a long time to come out to explain what happened, they have a long time to be able to come to grips with what happened to them and for the most part happened to them when they were really young and they’ve been dealing with it for many years,” said Michael Bryant, a St. Cloud-area attorney who represents clergy sex abuse victims.

Before the Child Victims Act, plaintiffs’ attorneys typically had to prove fraud to avoid a lawsuit being dismissed on statute of limitations grounds, Bryant said. Hundreds of cases statewide were dismissed on those grounds.

If the new lawsuits proceed to trials, plaintiffs’ attorneys likely will get the chance to ask questions of high-ranking church officials that they previously couldn’t.

“You never would get to the point where we were actually deposing priests or where we were actually going in and doing inspections on places,” he said.

He was asked how likely it is that bishops, abbots and other high-ranking church officials will now be required to answer questions from plaintiffs’ lawyers.

“It’s very possible,” Bryant said. “Over time, as part of the discovery, there’s going to be a lot more depositions. We’re able to get lists of what we weren’t able to get before. And hopefully, we’re able to get into what they knew and when they knew it.”

Some states have eliminated the statute of limitations completely because of the heinous nature of child sex abuse, Bryant said.

It remains to be seen whether Minnesota extends the three-year window for filing sex-abuse lawsuits or removes completely the statute of limitations for those acts.

Unsettled is whether someone who has previously filed a case and had it dismissed because of a statute of limitations motion can refile the claim again.

If a victim sued, settled and signed a release, he or she likely won’t be able to file the lawsuit again within the new window, Bryant said.