ALTOONA (PA)
Altoona Mirror
June 12, 2019
By Matt Miller
Superior Court overturns Blair judge’s dismissal of Bodziak case
A state Superior Court panel Tuesday reinstated a lawsuit against the Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown filed by a woman who claims a pedophile priest consistently molested her in the 1970s and ’80s.
That decision, outlined in an opinion by Judge Deborah A. Kunselman, overturns a Blair County judge’s dismissal of Renee A. Rice’s suit on statute of limitations grounds.
Rice claims her former priest at St. Leo’s Church in Altoona, the Rev. Charles F. Bodziak, began molesting her when she was about 9 years old in the mid-’70s. That molestation continued at the church, while she cleaned the rectory, in a graveyard and in Bodziak’s car until 1981, she contends. She said the abuse occurred as often as twice a week.
County Judge Jolene Grubb Kopriva dismissed Rice’s suit after agreeing with the diocese that she waited too long to file it. By the calculation of the diocese and Kopriva, the time limit for filing the case expired in October 1987, two years after Rice’s 18th birthday.
However, Kunselman’s panel revived Rice’s suit by citing a state Supreme Court ruling that was handed down 10 months after Kopriva issued the dismissal.
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