IDAHO
Idaho Statesman
Published: November 6, 2012
By MEGHANN M. CUNIFF — mcuniff@idahostatesman.com
Ronald Evan Morgan was 13 when he says a scoutmaster molested him on a Boy Scout camping trip in Idaho. Born and raised in the Treasure Valley, Morgan, now 46, lived with the secret for nearly three decades before suing the organization in 2007 for failing to protect him from a man he said everyone knew was pedophile.
He never got his day in court. The Idaho Supreme Court ruled three years ago that because the state law allowing claims based on childhood sexual abuse wasn’t enacted until 1989, Morgan and his two unnamed co-plaintiffs were too late.
But an August ruling by a federal judge in Boise could reopen a door previously closed.
U.S. District Judge Lynn Winmill has allowed a $5 million lawsuit against the Boy Scouts of America, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Ore-Idaho Council of the Boy Scouts in Boise to be heard by a jury on the grounds that the organizations engaged in institutional fraud by purporting to be a safe place for young boys while they knowingly concealed sexual abuse by its members.
It’s the first child sex abuse lawsuit in Idaho to pursue such a legal angle.
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