After May 6, various restrictions are reinstated on which claims can be brought. Factors include age of the victim, and whether the abuser is still alive. 

On Friday, two sisters sued in U.S. District Court in Billings, accusing the Jehovah’s Witness Church of failing to act after Bruce Mapley Sr. and Gunner Haines admitted to sexually abusing them in the 1970s. Mapley and Haines confessed to Martin Svensen, senior elder of the Hardin congregation, who investigated the allegations, “and was himself engaged in serious sexual abuse of children,” according to attorneys with the Missoula law firm Meyer, Shaffer & Stepans.

The church temporarily relieved the men of their duties but reinstated them within a year, attorneys say. And while church elders told the congregation that the men had committed a wrongdoing, they gave no more information, the attorneys say, and the abuse continued.

On Wednesday, three men filed individual lawsuits in state court in Great Falls, echoing a flurry of other plaintiffs around the country who say the Boy Scouts of America turned a blind eye when troop leaders abused them. Assistant Scoutmaster John McBride in Libby, Camp Director Gary Greff at the Grizzly Base Camp and K-M Scout Ranch, and leader Roger Maddox, of Great Falls are all named.

One of those plaintiffs, 57-year-old Chris Ford, said the ability to make a claim now will help him heal. He didn’t talk about it for decades, after telling his parents when it happened.

Ford hopes the lawsuit leads to more information about the scope of the cover-up.

“I want to know just how prolific the abuse was,” Ford said. “You know, I just thought mine was an isolated case, and come to find out there are hundreds of thousands of potential victims.”

Mike Pfau, a Seattle attorney representing Ford, told The Washington Post in February that there were likely tens of thousands of potential victims across the country.