GEORGIA
The Raw Story
By David Ferguson
Thursday, August 7, 2014
A Georgia appeals court ruled that the Fulton County District Court judge was incorrect to toss out a suit filed by an anonymous sex abuse victim against the Atlanta Catholic Diocese.
According to the ALM’s Daily Report Online, the three-judge Georgia Court of Appeals panel ruled that Fulton State Court Judge Patsy Porter was wrong when she ruled in 2013 that the suit filed against Holy Cross Catholic Church was invalid because the plaintiff’s name was listed as “Jane Doe” and that it was too late for the plaintiff to include her name.
“Because we hold that the trial court erred in concluding that the complaint was void, we reverse,” the panel said in its decision.
“We further hold that the trial court has the discretion to consider whether Doe is
entitled to proceed under a pseudonym and, therefore,” the judges said, the suit against Holy Cross and the Atlanta Diocese may proceed.
In Jane Doe v. Archdiocese of Atlanta, et al., the plaintiff alleged that Holy Cross Catholic Church was negligent in failing to stop a music minister then in its employ from sexually assaulting her when she was 14 years old.
The appeals panel said that Judge Porter’s decision was wrong because the plaintiff’s name was revealed to the trial judge and to the church in the case, but had only been withheld from legal filings.
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