Archdiocese Asks to Justices to Hear Abuse Case

 By Jim Saunders

The News Service of Florida

     TALAHASSEE — In what it described as a “case of exceptional importance” for employers, the Archdiocese of Miami on Thursday asked the Florida Supreme Court to take up a dispute involving allegations that a priest sexually abused a child.

The archdiocese wants justices to review a decision by the 3rd District Court of Appeal that would allow the alleged victim to pursue a claim of intentional infliction of emotional distress against the archdiocese.

The lawsuit alleges that the plaintiff, identified as John Doe 1, was sexually abused dozens of times between 1999 and 2001, when he was 7 to 9 years old, according to a March 22 decision by a three-judge panel of the South Florida appeals court. The case names as a defendant the archdiocese and not the priest.

“The complaint contains detailed allegations that the archdiocese knew about the priest’s long history of child sexual abuse, going back at least as far as 1969 but concealed this information, continued to place the priest in positions with access to children and did nothing to prevent further abuse,” said the decision, written by Judge Norma Lindsey and joined by Judges Thomas Logue and Bronwyn Miller.

The appeals court rejected part of the lawsuit alleging negligence by the archdiocese, citing a four-year statute of limitations on negligence claims. The lawsuit was filed in 2021, when the alleged victim was 29.

But the court overturned a circuit judge’s ruling that dismissed the intentional infliction of emotional distress claim. It pointed to the interplay of two laws, including a 2010 law that lifted certain time restrictions on cases involving sexual batteries on victims under age 16.

While the appeals court said the negligence claim was barred by a statute of limitations, the claim of intentional infliction of emotional distress was not. It also said the case could be brought against an “institution” — not just an individual.

In the brief filed Thursday at the Supreme Court, attorneys for the archdiocese argued that the March decision conflicted with a 2016 ruling by the 4th District Court of Appeal and that such cases could only be filed against individual abusers and not employers.

The archdiocese was a defendant in the 2016 case, which was from Broward County and involved allegations that a child was abused by priests in the 1980s. The 4th District Court of Appeal upheld a dismissal of the lawsuit, and the Supreme Court declined to hear the case.

In addition to arguing that a conflict exists between the appeals-court rulings, attorneys for the archdiocese pointed in Thursday’s brief to potential “far reaching implications” of the case.

“The case otherwise presents a case of exceptional importance because it establishes employer liability to claims that would otherwise be time barred,” the brief said.