Rep. again introduces bill that would give sex-abuse victims more time to file lawsuits

By Katherine Gregg
Providence Journal
January 23, 2019

https://bit.ly/2WfZrV1

Spurred by the molestation of her sister by their parish priest in West Warwick when they were both children, state Rep. Carol Hagan McEntee has lined up more than 50 co-sponsors for her reworked bill to extend the time that child victims have, after reaching adulthood, to lodge civil suits against their abusers.

PROVIDENCE — Spurred by the molestation of her sister by their parish priest in West Warwick when they were both children, state Rep. Carol Hagan McEntee has lined up more than 50 co-sponsors for her reworked bill to extend the time that child victims have, after reaching adulthood, to lodge civil suits against their abusers.

The Rhode Island Catholic Diocese successfully blocked an earlier version of McEntee's bill in 2018. The church insisted on limiting the application of the proposed law to "prospective" cases of alleged abuse, which McEntee deemed unacceptable. The bill died in the final hours of last year's session, after hours-long hearings in both the House and the Senate that drew speaker after speaker to the Rhode Island State House with tales of abuse by their family priests and other trusted elders in positions of authority. 

The reworked bill which McEntee, D-South Kingstown, introduced on Tuesday would extend Rhode Island's seven-year statute of limitations on the filing of civil suits against the perpetrators of sex abuse of children to 35 years, to more closely mirror the law in Massachusetts.

More specifically, the bill would extend the filing deadline to 35 years after the alleged act occurred, or seven years "from the time the victim discovered or reasonably should have discovered" that "an emotional or psychological injury or condition was caused" by the abuse, "whichever period expires later." In the latter case, the clock would not start ticking until the alleged victim reached 18 years of age.

The legislation specifically opens the door to claims of "wrongful conduct, neglect or default in supervision, hiring, employment, training, monitoring ... failure to report and/or the concealment of childhood sexual abuse" by an individual, businesses and organizations that "negligently supervised" a person who sexually abused a minor. And it specifically calls for the payment of damages by the public or private entity that "owed a duty of care to the victim ... if there is a finding of negligence."

As currently written, the bill would only give victims — barred from filing suits under current law — three years from the passage of the proposed new law to do so.

The Rev. Bernard Healey, chief lobbyist for the Diocese of Providence, issued this statement in his role as director of the Rhode Island Catholic Conference: “One of the many issues that will be considered in this year’s General Assembly session will be the question of how best to provide justice and healing for victims of abuse. We will review the new proposal and engage in the legislative process in a respectful, constructive way that seeks an approach that is fair and just and truly serves the common good.”

The 2018 hearings on McEntee's bill drew a parade of victims to the State House to publicly recount their personal recollections of abuse, including McEntee's sister, who at that point was a 65-year-old psychologist; a well-known doctor talking about his abuse publicly for the first time; and Jim Scanlan, a Rhode Island man whose account of sex abuse by a Boston College High School priest in the late 1970s figured in the Oscar-winning movie “Spotlight.”

Their tales of abuse by trusted elders were not limited to the Catholic Church. Two women describing themselves as victims of sex-abuse scandals reaching back to the 1970s at St. George’s School, in Middletown, and the Gordon School, in East Providence, also conveyed their support for the bill, which has no restrictions on how far back the cases might reach.

McEntee's sister, Ann Hagan Webb, told lawmakers how long it took her not just to remember, but to even talk about her abuse. “I was too fragile,” she said.

Webb said Msgr. Anthony DeAngelis — now dead — repeatedly molested her in the rectory of Sacred Heart Church in West Warwick from the time she was 5 until she was 12, but, “I totally repressed the memory of my abuse until I was 40 ... when my children were about the age I was when it began.”

Webb, now in her mid-60s and working as a psychologist with other adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse, said the Catholic Church reimbursed $12,500 of the cost of her therapy, but to receive the help — which she had read in The Journal that the Diocese of Providence was offering — she had to sign away her own right to sue.

She said money is not her reason for pushing to extend the statute of limitations on civil suits.  A more compelling reason: “For most abuse victims, it is the only chance for obtaining any justice,” for making the perpetrators face ramifications, and publicly naming them so they cannot move on to another child in another school.

The negotiations came to a halt last year after the Diocese of Providence insisted on limiting the extended statute of limitations to “future” cases. In a recent op-ed that appeared in The Journal, the Rev. Bernard Healey, chief lobbyist for the diocese, suggested as a “starting point” a look at what other states have done.

Attorney General Peter Neronha has promised to promote legislation allowing a grand jury to issue a report, akin to the Pennsylvania law that allowed a grand jury to expose decades of clergy sex abuse against hundreds of victims. Currently, he notes, there is no law “permitting a grand jury to issue a report” where there is no criminal indictment.

With more than 50 of the 75 House members co-sponsoring McEntee's bill [H5171], the chances of passage have improved since last year. House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello said Tuesday he could not comment specifically on the reworked bill, because he has not yet read it.

But he has said more than once that he is "working closely with Rep. McEntee toward a resolution of this issue, and he is confident a version of the bill will pass."