NEW YORK
The Jewish Daily Forward
By Paul Berger
Published February 18, 2014.
A federal judge created a “Catch-22” for victims of sexual abuse at Yeshiva University’s high school by refusing to consider the impact of the school’s alleged cover-up, former students charged in an appeal of the dismissal of a $680 million lawsuit.
Kevin Mulhearn, a lawyer for 34 men who say they were abused at Yeshiva University’s Manhattan boys high school, said in the judge’s January 29 decision made it impossible for victims to bring a claim.
“There’s no way sex abuse victims can get justice if the school decides to conceal and cover-up their own knowledge and complicity,” Mulhearn told the Forward. Mulhearn filed the appeal on February 14.
Judge John G. Koeltl, of United States District Court in Manhattan, dismissed the former Y.U. students’ claims last month, citing New York State’s statute of limitations. Under state law, child abuse victims have to bring negligence claims against third parties, such as a school, before they turn 21.
Koeltl said that the students, who were abused between 1971 and 1992, knew they were abused, knew who abused them and knew who employed their abusers. They could and should have brought their claims decades ago, the judge said.
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