Brothers Want To Sue Catholic Church For Long-Ago Sexual Abuse

Two brothers want the state Supreme Court to let them sue the Catholic Church for negligence over sexual abuse they suffered at the hands of a priest 24 years ago because their “repressed memory” of the episode was only recently overcome.

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Boise, however, contends that the time for filing a lawsuit is past and even if it was not the church itself had nothing to do with the circumstances that resulted in the alleged abuse.

“These plaintiffs could have filed a lawsuit immediately,” Stanley Welsh, the attorney for the diocese, told the high court on Friday. “The time has run.”

But Allen Ellis, who represents Russell and Martin Bonner, maintained the abuse was so traumatic when it occurred in 1971 that the boys, then 10 and 11, just wiped it from their minds. Under the law, Ellis argued, they had no justification to sue then because they were not harmed since they had blanked the incident out. It was only after they finally remembered the alleged abuse that the damage occurred and they could justifiably sue.

Justice Byron Johnson repeatedly questioned Ellis on the fact that under the law the damage was done when the abuse occurred, no matter how traumatic it was, and that was the beginning of the two-year period within which a suit had to be filed.

“Events that are traumatic obviously are known at the time they occur,” Ellis agreed. “But because of the youth of the victims, they are put on the shelf.”

“They have no objective ability to assess their damage because of the repressed memory,” he said. “The child may not have realized that was wrong until he woke up as a 26-year-old man.”

The case, which the court took under advisement, involves a priest identified during the arguments as Father Luke, who allegedly fondled the boys while living in the home of the Bonner family during the spring and early summer of 1971. The diocese expelled him on July 27, 1971.

But for all the talk about repressed memory, Welsh argued that documents supplied by the diocese showed that the Bonners’ sister, brother and mother were all aware of the alleged abuse when it was occurring and could have sued then.

And even Ellis admitted that if the Supreme Court would overturn the lower court decision and allow the brothers to press their suit against the church, “there will be a very serious question as to the credibility of the plaintiffs.”

For now, however, he told the court that their contention of repressed memory, and its declaration as a legitimate psychiatric phenomenon by experts, must be taken at face value.

Even at that, Welsh countered, if any abuse occurred, it occurred outside the scope of the priests employment with the diocese and so the diocese cannot be held as negligent.