HAWAII
Honolulu Civil Beat
By Denby Fawcett
Editor’s Note: Civil Beat generally does not use anonymous sources, as noted in our long-standing policy. We’re making an exception for this and other stories about lawsuits filed by child sexual assault victims because we believe it is important to hear the victim’s perspective, and the fact that court records, including a settlement with the Catholic Church, do not reveal their identities.
The Hawaii deadline for victims of child sex abuse to sue was Sunday. In the four years leading up to the deadline, about 150 people filed legal complaints saying they were sexually molested as children. Most victims accused Catholic priests of being their abusers.
But not all were priests. Teachers and other professionals also have been named in the lawsuits. Twenty-six plaintiffs say the now-deceased Kamehameha Schools psychiatrist Robert McCormick Browne drugged and sexually molested them as children when the school sent them to Browne for therapy.
Hawaii lawmakers made it possible for sexual abuse victims to seek justice by extending the deadline for civil suits in 2012 and again in 2014 until the April 24 cutoff.
Most of the alleged incidents happened between the early 1950s and late 1980s.
Attorney Randall Rosenberg, who has filed suits for 56 claimants, says: “This is just the tip of the iceberg. There are hundreds of others out there in Hawaii who have been abused. And now with the deadline passed we are unable to help them.”
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