KEYSTONE CROSSROADS (PA)
WHYY Radio
November 16, 2018
By Bobby Allyn
Two people who have accused priests of molestation in Philadelphia have filed a lawsuit against the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference and all of the state’s dioceses demanding that additional church secrets be exposed.
The suit filed on Thursday in Common Pleas Court marks the latest civil action following this summer’s grand jury report implicating more than 300 so-called predator priests who allegedly abused minors and covered up decades of crime.
Plaintiff Daniel Hillanbrand, 48, a warehouse manager who now lives in North Carolina, said in the early 1980s he was abused in Philadelphia by Rev. James Dux, who has been accused of numerous instances of sexual misconduct by other minors.
The cases of Hillanbrand and the other plaintiff in the suit, LeeAnne Natali, 57, who says she was abused by a Philadelphia priest in the 1970s, were not involved in the scathing state grand jury report released in August because previous grand juries had already investigated clergy sex abuse in Philadelphia.
Both claims in the suit are too old under the law to be pursued for monetary damages, but lawyers for the plaintiffs say this legal challenge has a different aim: to reveal the names of additional clergy members involved in enabling abusers across the state.
“They’re all engaged in the same practice in concert and they are continuing to cause peril for minors,” said Minnesota-based lawyer Jeffrey Anderson, who is the lead attorney on the suit. “The grand jury report this summer named the problem, and we’re trying to do something about it to make communities safer.”
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