California’s highest court has told six brothers they had waited too long to bring sexual abuse claims against a priest whom they allege molested them during the 1970’s.
The opportunity to bring the claims was given during in 2003 when a one-year window for old complaints against priests was granted by the state.
The court ruled 5-2 that the brothers had waited too long.
“Although we are unreservedly sympathetic to the plight of persons who were subjected to childhood sexual abuse, we note that the preexisting limitations period, along with the one-year revival period … afforded victims a very considerable time following the abuse in which to come to maturity, or even middle age, and discover the claim,” Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye wrote for the majority.
The brothers’ lawyers maintain the time limit did not apply to the men because they did not make the link between their psychological problems as adults and what happened to them as children until after the filing window closed.
The justices, however, said the brothers were not eligible to employ the “delayed discovery” provision because the statute of limitations for them to sue the priest’s employer already had lapsed under an earlier law that permitted victims to sue third parties only if they were under the age of 26.
The ruling could doom at least eight other pending cases involving decades-old clergy abuse claims.
Sources
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