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	Wisconsin Court Reinstates Suit against Milwaukee Archdiocese over Sex Abuse Fox News July 11, 2007 http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,288932,00.html Madison, Wis. — The Wisconsin Supreme Court revived a lawsuit against the Archdiocese of Milwaukee on Wednesday, ordering more proceedings into whether childhood victims of sexual abuse can sue the diocese for covering up past abuse. The court said four victims of sexual abuse in the 1970s and 1980s cannot sue the diocese for negligence for failing to supervise the priests who molested them because the statute of limitations has expired. The three-year limit started ticking on the date of the last sexual assaults of each victim, the court said. But the court reinstated the victims' claims of fraud against the diocese and ordered more proceedings to consider whether the six-year statute of limitations for such claims had expired. The victims say the diocese fraudulently claimed the priests who abused them were not a danger to children and had no history of molesting children when church officials knew otherwise. The proceedings should answer the key question of when the victims discovered the fraud, Justice Patience Roggensack wrote in the court's 5-2 decision. "We cannot determine when the plaintiffs knew or should have known of the Archdiocese's alleged knowledge of the priests' past histories of sexual molestation of children," she wrote. "Therefore, their claims may or may not be time-barred ... depending on when the claims for fraud accrued." Diocese spokeswoman Kathleen Hohl did not immediately return a phone message Wednesday morning. In a partial dissent, two members of the court said the victims should be able to sue for the diocese's negligent supervision of the priests. "Decades have elapsed since the alleged wrongful conduct of the Archdiocese occurred," Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson wrote, joined by Justice Ann Walsh Bradley. "But that should not prevent the plaintiffs from having their day in court."
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