MAINE
Portland Press Herald
By Scott Dolan sdolan@pressherald.com
Staff Writer
The Maine Supreme Judicial Court on Thursday affirmed an earlier ruling that too much time had passed to allow a Portland woman’s lawsuit to go forward against a former Roman Catholic priest she accused of sexually assaulting her while a child more than 40 years ago.
Christine Angell, now 52, sued the former priest, Renald C. Hallee of Billerica, Massachusetts, and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland in March 2010 in Cumberland County Superior Court. She accused Hallee of sexually assaulting her between 1970 and 1973, when she was between 8 and 11 years old and he was assigned as assistant pastor to St. John Catholic Church in Bangor.
Angell’s claims against the diocese were settled, but her claim against Hallee was dismissed in a ruling by a Superior Court judge last year, who found that by state law the statute of limitations for Angell to make her claim against him expired two years after her 18th birthday.
Angell argued in an appeal before the Maine Supreme Judicial Court last month that the statute of limitations should have been put on hold because Hallee moved out of state in 1977 and that she did not learn where he was until the diocese told her in 2009, according to Thursday’s unanimous ruling.
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