NEW ORLEANS (LA)
WGNO [New Orleans LA]
May 10, 2024
By Marlo Lacen
SHREVEPORT, La. (KTAL/KMSS) – The Louisiana Supreme Court has granted a request to reopen and revisit a controversial opinion ruling that civil judgments against priests could not be awarded retroactively to adult survivors of child sexual abuse.
On May 10, the high court requested a rehearing in Bienvenu v The Society of the Roman Catholic Church, Diocese of Lafayette, and St. Martin De Tours Catholic Church, which was reversed and vacated in March.
Attorney Kristi S. Schubert, of the Lamothe Law Firm, LLC, recalls that “when the
Bienvenu ruling came out in March; there was an enormous public backlash. Abuse survivors
felt that the Court had robbed them of their last chance for justice. And Louisiana citizens were
outraged that the Court had granted child molesters an untouchable constitutional right to get
away with child rape.
Soon after the justices voted to vacate the lower court ruling, Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill filed a brief urging the court to reverse its ruling on Bienvenu. In the brief, Murrill warned that the court’s ruling “threatens to collapse the separation of powers under the Louisiana Constitution” and that the majority’s opinion “is an open door for freewheeling judicial policymaking.”
The ruling in Bienvenu also prompted the Louisiana Legislature to introduce Senate Concurrent Resolution 26, which repudiates the Bienvenu ruling and clarifies that child molesters do not have a “vested” property right to escape responsibility because the Louisiana Legislature has never given them such a right. SCR 26 was passed unanimously in the Senate and is expected to move to the House floor next week.
The “vested” property right is the legal principle on which the defendants in Bienvenu based their Supreme Court appeal.
Justice Weimer provided the dissenting opinion when the court reversed and vacated a lower court’s order in favor of the plaintiff, Bienvenu, and in the decision to rehear the case and “would order this matter set for oral argument promptly during the month of May.”
Attorney Frank E. Lamothe, III, states “I am hopeful that this means the Supreme
Court realizes their error in the original Bienvenu opinion and will finally restore the rights of
survivors of sexual abuse to pursue their claims against their perpetrators and those who
enabled them.”
Parties for the plaintiffs and defense may submit their supplemental briefs on or before May 20.