Maine’s highest court has shot down a 2021 law that allowed people to file lawsuits over claims of child sex abuse, regardless of when the abuse was alleged to have occurred.
State lawmakers agreed more than three years ago to let anyone, including those who were previously barred by Maine’s statute of limitations, to sue in civil court. Dozens of people seized on the opportunity.
Many targeted the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland, alleging its leaders knew about the abuse and failed to prevent it or warn parishioners about allegations. The diocese challenged the law a year later. Some of the allegations dated as far back as the 1950s, and involved priests and other church employees who were already found to be credibly accused. Most have died.
In the 100-page ruling issued Tuesday by the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, the justices said the court has never allowed the state to allow people to bring claims that have already expired under Maine’s statute of limitations.
“Not all retroactive legislation is prohibited, but retroactive legislation cannot impair vested rights,” Associate Justice Catherine Connors wrote in the court’s majority opinion. “Once a statute of limitations has expired for a claim, a right to be free of that claim has vested, and the claim cannot be revived.”
It took an unusual 14 months for a ruling and it’s unclear where the lawsuits against the diocese will go from here. The court ordered that the stalled cases be sent back to the trial court, to go through “further proceedings consistent with this opinion.”
It’s also unclear what happens to the state law and if the Legislature will have to respond. A spokesperson for the Office of the Maine Attorney General, which defended the law in court, said it will not comment on the court’s decision.
A ‘DEGREE OF UNCERTAINTY’
Bishop James Ruggieri, who leads the Maine diocese, said in a written statement Tuesday that a “degree of uncertainty still remains,” but that he hopes the high court’s decision “will allow us as a diocese to commit to strengthening the core mission of the Church in Maine with even greater humility and devotion.”
“We as a diocese are committed to the highest standards and protocols of keeping our parishes safe places for our children,” Ruggieri said. “We are also committed to maintaining and strengthening the vibrancy of our parish communities and Church ministries which support so many people across the state, Catholic and non-Catholic. We will continue our mission of evangelization and direct service to those in need.”
The diocese’s lawyers have also argued that the law put countless other organizations at risk of being sued. In the last three years, previously expired claims have been filed against the YMCA of Bangor, the Special Olympics, Camp Kieve and a counselor from the 1970s.
Maine attorney Michael Bigos, whose team represents roughly 100 people with decades-old claims, said in a statement Tuesday that he is disappointed in the ruling but is not giving up on these cases.
“The abuse that forms the basis for these lawsuits occurred as far back as 1954 in a variety of venues, mostly churches and diocesan schools,” Bigos said. “Their cases show that the Diocese of Portland knew about rampant sexual abuse by its priests, nuns, and teachers for decades and chose to protect these known predators instead of the children in their care.”
“We believe evidence shows the Diocese kept enabling dozens of abusers,” Bigos said.
Jessica Arbour, an attorney in Florida who represents some of those suing the church, said that the court’s decision is inconsistent with those in other states. A similar law in Vermont was recently upheld by that state’s supreme court. She described a national movement to update statutes of limitations in recognition that survivors of child sex abuse need time to fully understand their experiences.
“There’s still a lot of work to do,” she said. “I hope that Maine lawmakers will do what they can to open up whatever doors they can for survivors. There are a lot of people hurting.”
Arbour noted that even coming forward was difficult for her clients.
“These people, they bear their souls and they talk about these secrets that have been eating them alive for decades, maybe at the risk of alienating themselves from their friends and family,” she said. “And now they don’t have anything to show for it.”
HISTORIC PRECEDENT
The diocese has previously claimed it had a “vested right” in the protections it enjoyed under Maine’s previous statute of limitations. Without those protections, the diocese is open to potentially millions in damages.
Attorneys and advocates have said the litigation is about justice. The Maine Coalition Against Sexual Assault said it is aware of 75 lawsuits against teachers and clergy stemming “from a systemic failure to protect children, a failure that persists as the Diocese continues to evade accountability nearly 60 years later.”
“Institutions that once claimed the moral high ground used their power to hide unspeakable abuses,” Director Elizabeth Ward Saxl said in a statement Tuesday. “They have avoided accountability for decades, and today’s decision allows them to continue. But the survivors’ courage has ensured that their stories are heard, their truths known. Their voices echo as a testament to resilience and a call for change. Because of their bravery, today’s children have stronger protections, and the powerful have fewer places to hide.”
Since the 1980s, Maine has been chipping away at its statute of limitations for child sex abuse. After extending the window for claims several times, lawmakers in 2000 eliminated all restrictions moving forward. But they didn’t do anything to reopen the window for claims before 1987, which had already expired under previous law.
When state lawmakers “revived” those claims in 2021, it was the first time the state has ever passed such a law in 200 years.
Rep. Lori Gramlich, D-Old Orchard Beach, led that effort. She said in a statement that the law “represented a chance to finally pursue long overdue justice.”
“This decision will reopen emotional wounds and make it harder for survivors to achieve that justice,” Gramlich said. “I want fellow survivors to hear this loud and clear: You are not defined by your abuse. You deserve to be heard and believed. You deserve justice. That’s why I sponsored this legislation, and it’s what I will keep working for. Our system should hold perpetrators accountable.”
But in rejecting the sweeping repeal of the statute, the supreme court recognized a “longstanding antipathy toward retroactive legislation of this type” in its majority ruling, citing similar decisions that go back to the state’s founding in 1820.
“We have declared flatly, many times, with no articulated restriction, in varied types of cases, both common law and statutorily created, that a claim cannot be revived after its statute of limitations has expired,” Connors wrote.
Associate Justices Wayne Douglas and Rick Lawrence wrote in a dissenting opinion that this case is different than others the court has considered, and that the court has “never before” “squarely confronted the issue presented by this case: whether the Maine Constitution prohibits the Legislature from enacting a statute that retroactively repeals a statute of limitations, thereby allowing a previously barred claim to proceed.”
“Our Constitution does not require the result the Court reaches today,” Douglas wrote. “Nor does our case law. I therefore respectfully dissent.”
IF YOU or someone you know has experienced sexual abuse, you can call the statewide Sexual Assault Crisis and Support Line at 1-800-871-7741 to talk to someone who can help. You can learn more online here.
FOR ASSISTANCE during a mental health crisis, call or text 888-568-1112. To call the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, call 988 or chat online at 988lifeline.org.
FOR OTHER support or referrals, call the NAMI Maine Help Line at 800-464-5767 or email helpline@namimaine.org.
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