NEW YORK
New York Daily News
BY GLENN BLAIN
ALBANY — State lawmakers may be running out of reasons not to help the victims of child sex abuse obtain justice in New York.
As the state Senate and Assembly weigh legislation to eliminate the criminal and civil statute of limitations for child sex abuse cases and give victims a one-year window to revive old cases, advocates contend the arguments put forward by the Catholic Conference and other critics just don’t measure up to reality.
“We keep seeing the same arguments and they just don’t pan out,” said advocate Marci Hamilton, who has researched the issue.
The arguments and the reality:
MYTH: Extending the statute of limitations and granting a lookback window would spur a torrent of lawsuits and bankrupt religious organizations and groups like the Boy Scouts.
REALITY: Financial ruin is a commonly used argument against changing the law, but experiences in other states don’t appear to justify the dire predictions.
“There is a lot of Chicken Little, the sky is falling,” Hamilton said. “But if you just look at the facts in each of the states, it is a much more modest effect than they are claiming.”
Hamilton’s research found that in eight states with one-year window provisions, fewer than 3,000 people filed lawsuits. In California, which enacted a one-year window in 2003, 1,150 cases were filed.
Insurance experts, in a 2012 report, estimated that 100,000 children in the U.S. were victims of clerical sex abuse.
The Catholic Church in the United States has already paid about $3 billion to resolve child sex abuse claims, and at least 13 Catholic dioceses have filed for bankruptcy, according to data compiled by BishopAccountability.org, a private group that has tracked the scandal.
Hamilton, however, argued bankruptcy is employed more as a legal tactic to minimize payouts and draw out potential accusers rather than an expression of financial ruin.
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