Pennsylvania Court Rules Against Church Abuse Suit Plaintiffs, Citing Statute of Limitations

AP ^ | Mar. 15, 2005 | David B. Caruso

[Crackingham]

A state appeals court delivered a stinging setback to alleged victims of clergy abuse by ruling that 17 adults who said they were molested by priests as children waited too long to sue. A three-judge panel of the Superior Court said Monday that even if officials of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia were guilty of "inexcusable conduct," they were protected by Pennsylvania's strict statute of limitations, which generally requires lawsuits in such cases to be filed within two years.

One of the cases dates back to 1957, and the most recent alleges abuse in 1983.

The court rejected the plaintiffs' allegations that the church so successfully covered up its role in protecting abusive priests that no one could have suspected the archdiocese of negligence until a wave of sex abuse scandals brought the issue to the public's attention in 2002.

The archdiocese has said that its records show 44 priests have been "credibly" accused of molesting minors since the 1950s.

Only one priest has been charged in Philadelphia since a grand jury began investigating in 2002. The Rev. James J. Behan pleaded guilty to sexually abusing a student at a school for boys in the late 1970s.

Judge Peter Paul Olszewski wrote that, in the eyes of the law, the alleged victims' right to sue would have been preserved only if they had begun investigating the church's role at the time they had been injured. No such inquiry took place, he wrote.

"The abuses committed by agents of the Catholic Church are, by far, not isolated events," Olszewski wrote. "Nevertheless, we are constrained to agree with the Archdiocese in this matter."