MISSOURI
The Kansas City Star
November 12
BY MARK MORRIS
The Kansas City Star
The Kansas City Catholic diocese cannot be liable for the actions of a priest alleged to have sexually abused a boy away from church property, an appeals court ruled Tuesday.
A three-judge panel of the Missouri Western District Court of Appeals upheld a decision last year by a Jackson County judge dismissing civil allegations filed against the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph by a plaintiff identified by the appeals court only as “D.T.”
In his suit, D.T. had claimed that the Rev. Michael Tierney had abused him twice in the early 1970s, once in a hotel room and once in the basement of Tierney’s mother’s home.
Tierney has denied all wrongdoing, and D.T. dismissed his claims against the priest while his appeal of rulings in favor of the diocese was pending.
D.T. filed three negligence claims against the diocese, which the appeals court agreed could not stand because of a 1997 Missouri Supreme Court ruling that limited such actions against religious institutions in order to avoid entangling courts in First Amendment, freedom-of-religion issues.
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