MISSOURI
The Kansas City Star
BY JUDY L. THOMAS
jthomas@kcstar.com
A lower court was correct in dismissing defamation and other claims against a national Catholic organization by a former altar boy whose sexual abuse case was part of a $10 million settlement with the Kansas City-St. Joseph Diocese, a federal appellate court has ruled.
In an opinion issued Tuesday, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said that Jon David Couzens waited too long to file the lawsuit.
The case, filed in Jackson County Circuit Court in 2013, named as defendants the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights; its president and CEO, William Donohue; the KC Catholic League; and two Kansas City men who were officers of the now-dissolved local organization.
Couzens said that Donohue published false statements about him in news releases, on the Catholic League’s website and in documents distributed to churches. Couzens also accused the defendants of invasion of privacy and inflicting emotional distress.
The New York-based Catholic League successfully got the lawsuit moved to U.S. District Court. That court dismissed the case in 2015 after agreeing with the Catholic League that the material was first published in New York and because of that, the statute of limitations had expired.
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