NEW YORK/VERMONT
Albany Times Union
By Brendan J. Lyons
The Albany Roman Catholic Diocese, which was ordered by a Vermont judge to turn over nearly 40 years worth of sexual abuse records to a victim who filed a lawsuit, has filed an unusual petition asking a federal appeals court to strike down the ruling and dismiss the case.
The diocese argues that U.S. District Court Judge William K. Sessions III made errors and ignored U.S. Supreme Court decisions when he ruled last year that the Albany diocese can be sued in Vermont by a New York man who was taken across state lines and raped by Gary Mercure, a priest serving up to 20 years in prison for raping Albany-area altar boys.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit issued an order this week that will put the Vermont case on hold while the panel considers the diocese’s petition, which is known as a writ of mandamus. The petition seeks appellate intervention and challenges whether Sessions improperly ruled that the diocese’s limited business ties to Vermont were enough to establish jurisdiction in a state. The diocese said the lawsuit was filed in that state because the statute of limitations time-barred any claim being filed in New York.
In the petition, the diocese notes that Sessions “has ordered the production of thousands of documents spanning decades—most notably, all allegations of sexual abuse of minors, and the details of all investigations resulting from such allegations, dating back to 1975. This will require the collection and review of files on thousands of employees maintained in hundreds of locations, at great effort and expense, and calls for the disclosure of highly sensitive private information relating to employees who are not parties to this lawsuit.”
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