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  Bill to End Blanket Charity Immunity Is Stuck in Trenton

By Jason Del Rey
Jersey Journal [New Jersey]
December 5, 2005

Even if the allegations of sexual misconduct against him are true, Monsignor Peter Cheplic can't be sued by his victims, according to a New Jersey state law that prohibits the "beneficiary" of a nonprofit organization - such as a member of a church - from suing it in court.

Such blanket immunity exists only in New Jersey, Tennessee and Alabama, and six other states have limited immunity, according to Fix The Law, a non-profit organization founded by former Bayonne resident Mark Crawford, who says he is a clergy abuse survivor.

New Jersey's law was adopted in 1958, when lawmakers rushed to enact it after the state Supreme Court abolished the centuries-old doctrine of charitable immunity. The state's Charitable Immunity Act was drafted within a week of the court decision and was enacted within three months.

In recent years, the state's Catholic bishops have defended the law, saying money donated by parishioners for charitable purposes should not be diverted to pay for lawsuits.

But Assemblyman Anthony Chiappone and Crawford are leading a movement to pass a bill that would amend the Charitable Immunity Act to eliminate immunity only in cases where the church or other nonprofit charity was allegedly careless in its "hiring, supervision or retention of any employee" who sexually abused a minor.

"Whether it's the church, whether it's any other nonprofit where harm is done and done to a person at a young age, reparation should be made," said Chiappone, the bill's primary sponsor in the Assembly.

But the bill - which was easily passed in the state Senate but has been sitting on Speaker Albio Sires's desk for a year waiting to be posted for vote in the Assembly - has been the topic of hot debate in Trenton.

Sires said he won't post the bill until it's changed to have some kind of statute of limitations on such lawsuits, as has been advocated by the New Jersey Catholic Conference.

William F. Bolan Jr., executive director of the New Jersey Catholic Conference, said the amendment, as proposed, wouldn't prevent anyone from bringing forward an allegation from decades before.

"It's very unfair to the person defending that suit," Bolan said. "Witnesses die, memories fade."

Sires said he wants the church and Fix the Law to "at least try to come up with a compromise."

Crawford asked,"What institution should be above the law if they play a role in the sexual abuse of a child? The bill doesn't strip the church of (all) immunity and doesn't change the statute of limitations."

Another reason he hasn't posted the bill, Sires said, is because he isn't sure he has enough votes to pass it.

That might have been true before Election Day, Chiappone said.

"There are key Assembly people that are fearful of repercussions from the Church that can affect them adversely," Chiappone said. "Now with the elections out of the way, maybe some of those legislators will support the bill."

 
 

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