OK, but he’s NOT a mandatory reporter if he’s told something during confession, correct?
And yes, folks, the accused abuser is dead. Whether he was ever accused in his life is still not clear to me. See the post I made with the link to the National Catholic Register story.
"According to the allegations in the petition and the deposition testimony in the record, subsequent “meetings” were had—one between the priest and Mr. and Mrs. Charlet, and another between the Charlets and the minor child’s parents (the plaintiffs)—concerning the “obsessive number of emails and phone calls” between Mr. Charlet and the minor child and the seemingly inappropriate closeness between the two that had been observed by various parishioners." ...
"Therefore, we find the appellate court erred in dismissing plaintiffs’ claims with prejudice as the question of duty/risk should be resolved by the factfinder at trial, particularly herein where there exists material issues of fact concerning whether the communications between the child and the priest were confessions per se and whether the priest obtained knowledge outside the confessional that would trigger his duty to report."
The point is, the priest had meetings with the molester and his wife. There was also a meeting -- quite possibly arranged by the priest -- between the molester, his wife, and the girl's parents.
What motivated those meetings? If the priest called the meetings because he had knowledge outside the confessional, he becomes a mandatory reporter, because those are outside conversations. If we accept at face value the priests claim that he would not violate the Seal, then there [may] exist conversations with the girl not protected by the seal.
In any case, because of these meetings, the LA SC has ruled that there are facts in dispute. In our legal system, facts in dispute in causes of action are resolved by a "trier of fact," which in this case is going to be a jury.
Contrary to what some FReepers are claiming, this is not a crazy infringement on the sanctity of the confessional, and the decision by the LA SC is rational and [IMHO] correct. We'll see where it goes from here.