BishopAccountability.org
 
  Bill Would Allow Victims of Past Child Abuse to Sue

By Andrew Welsh-Huggins
Associated Press, carried in Beacon Journal [Columbus OH]
March 16, 2005

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Victims of child sexual abuse that occurred years or decades ago could still sue their abusers under a proposed change to Ohio law.

The Senate was expected to approve a bill Wednesday giving victims a one-time window to file claims of abuse dating back 35 years.

Victims would have one year to file such a claim after the law takes effect or two years if they currently have a case in court.

The legislation, before the Senate Criminal Justice Committee, would also dramatically extend the deadline for filing abuse claims in the future.

Under current law, victims have one year after turning 18 to file claims against an alleged abuser and two years to file a claim against an institution that may have contributed to the abuse, such as a church or school.

The proposal to be approved Wednesday would extend the deadline to file such claims to 20 years.

A handful of states have extended such deadlines recently, including California, Connecticut and Illinois.

"People who have been victims of child sexual abuse don't tend to come to grips with the emotional, psychological damage that's been done to them, often times until they're 35, 40 years old," said Sen. Marc Dann, a Youngstown Democrat who pushed for the extension of reporting deadlines.

Emotional testimony from victims of abuse persuaded lawmakers to include the one-year window for filing claims in older cases, said Senate Criminal Justice Chairman Jim Jordan, an Urbana Republican.

Several people who said they'd been abused by Roman Catholic priests in the past four decades testified before the committee in recent weeks.

"I think the statute of limitations should be lifted, just like for murder," said Robert Claar, who sued the Diocese of Toledo over abuse he said he suffered in the 1970s in Fremont. "It's murder of the soul."

Claar, who wrote a letter to the committee in support of the bill, said he settled with the diocese for $150,000 and the removal of the priest from his position. But he wanted the priest to be defrocked, which he said has not occurred.

"He's still out there doing the same thing, but no one's watching him now," Claar said in a telephone interview from Anchorage, Alaska, where he now lives.

The bill also would add clergy to the list of professionals required to report suspected abuse under Ohio law.

State law already requires professionals including doctors, lawyers, nurses, teachers, social workers and day-care employees to report suspected child abuse cases to child protection agencies or police.

The bill, sponsored by Republican Sen. Robert Spada, would require clergy and other church leaders to report abuse they suspect is being committed by other clergy or church leaders.

The Catholic Conference of Ohio, which supports the clergy portion of the bill, opposes allowing the retroactive filing of lawsuits.

"This could bankrupt the church in Ohio," said Timothy Luckhaupt, the conference's executive director.

An organization representing people abused by clergy said the retroactive clause doesn't go far enough. The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests said the one-year window should go back to 1960.

Protestant ministers who helped kill the bill in the last General Assembly continue to oppose the measure for interfering with the separation of church and state.

"We are living in a day when everybody is so quick to point out any place that the church gets engaged in the public arena," said Daniel Whisner, a Mount Vernon pastor and president of Ohio Legislative Watch, a group that monitors bills affecting churches. "But when the state says, 'We're going to come over and involve ourselves in what are truly spiritual matters,' there's not a corresponding concern."

 
 

Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.