Sex Abuse: Governor Vetoes Bill to Allow More Victims

By Jim Miller
The Sacramento Bureau
October 13, 2013

http://www.pe.com/local-news/politics/jim-miller-headlines/20131013-sex-abuse-governor-vetoes-bill-to-allow-more-victims.ece

Brown says proposal giving defendants more time to file lawsuits is “unfair and open-ended”

[Gov. Brown's statement]

SACRAMENTO — Calling the proposal “unfair and open-ended,” Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed legislation Saturday, Oct. 12, that would have allowed more victims of childhood sexual abuse to pursue lawsuits against the Catholic Church, Boy Scouts and other private groups that had overseen the abuser.

The measure would have created a one-year legal window for people who suffered sexual abuse many years earlier but who have been prevented from pursuing lawsuits under a landmark 2002 law because of a California Supreme Court ruling a decade later.

In a lengthy veto message that cited Roman law and included a detailed history of California’s rules on sex-abuse litigation, Brown complained that the legislation applied only to private institutions, such as the Catholic Church, and not schools and other government entities.

The church has paid out an estimated $1.2 billion since 2002. Lawmakers approved a bill in 2008 clarifying that the 2002 law also applied to government agencies. That change, though, did not allow lawsuits in cases where the statute of limitations had expired, Brown noted in his veto of Senate Bill 131.

“What (SB 131) does do is go back to the only group, i.e. private institutions, that have already been subjected to the unusual ‘one year revival period’ and makes them, and them alone, subject to suit indefinitely,” Brown wrote in his veto message.

“This extraordinary extension of the statute of limitations, which legislators chose not to apply to public institutions, is simply too open-ended and unfair,” added Brown, who studied to become a Catholic priest as a young man.

Supporters of Senate Bill 131 blasted the governor’s veto as an abandonment of people who have suffered years of torment from childhood sex abuse. They would have been able to sue under the 2002 law but for the complicated interplay between that law and others on the subject and a 2012 ruling by the California Supreme Court.

“I’m not much for words now,” said an emotional David Nickell, 45, of Riverside, who would have been covered by the bill.

Nickell has pursued litigation against the Diocese of San Bernardino, charging that it did nothing to stop a pedophile priest from molesting him when he was 11 and 12.

“It’s sick. He’s using the same kind of language as the church” in his veto message, Nickell said of Brown.

The Diocese of San Bernardino was unavailable for comment Saturday. Bishop Gerald Barnes had lobbied against the bill.

Brown’s veto message echoed critics' arguments to legislative committees during months of hearings on the bill. Opponents said the legislation would open the door to more massive judgments for cases that are decades old.

“We are grateful that Gov. Brown chose to veto SB 131. It was unfair to the vast majority of victims and unfair to all private and non-profit organizations,” the Most Rev. Gerald Wilkerson, Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and president of the California Catholic Conference, said in a statement.

SB 131 was among 32 bills Brown acted on Saturday, signing 20 and vetoing 12. He has until midnight Sunday to consider the remaining legislation on his desk.