Louisiana High Court: Priests have a "right" not to be sued over decades-old abuse

The state's Supreme Court said a three-year "look-back window" on abuse allegations was unconstitutional

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The Louisiana Supreme Court just gave Catholic priests a free pass on sexually abusing children as long as they did it a long time ago.

Or, as some headlines are putting it, the Court says priests have a “property right” not to be sued for sexual abuse.

Catholic priest with hands on his head (image via Shutterstock)

All of this involves a law that the state passed in the wake of the Catholic Church’s sex abuse scandal.

In 2021, the Louisiana legislature passed a three-year “window” for unresolved sexual abuse allegations. In essence, lawmakers realized that some victims of child sexual abuse are unable to wrestle with what happened to them until much later in life. By the time they’re ready to fight back, it may be too late. By creating this window, Louisiana became the 22nd state to allow people to sue their alleged assailants even if the statute of limitations had otherwise expired. It was a way for victims to finally get the justice they deserved.

Before that law passed, victims of child sexual abuse only had until age 28 to sue their attackers. The sponsor of the bill pointed out that “the average age for child sex abuse victims to come forward and report their ordeals is 52.”

It’s worth pointing out that there are reasonable criticisms of laws like these. The main one is that people who are accused of abusing someone decades ago may find it difficult to mount any kind of defense. Details are harder to remember. Witnesses may no longer be around. If an organization thinks the statute of limitations has expired, they may destroy otherwise relevant documents.

But the burden of proof still exists. Even if it’s hard for the alleged attackers to defend themselves, it’s equally difficult to prove such an attack occurred a long time ago. Still, this three-year window at least gave victims a chance to make their case. That’s all.

That chance is what Douglas Bienvenu wanted when he filed his lawsuit.

He and several other boys said that when they were kids in the 1970s, ages 8-14, they were sexually abused by a Catholic priest. In 2018, they sued the Diocese of Lafayette and St. Martin De Tours Catholic Church. But the Catholic Church said the statute of limitations had expired and the case needed to be tossed out.

After Louisiana passed the three-year “look-back window” law, the Church said the new law still didn’t apply here because it violated their constitutional rights. They no longer had proper legal recourse to defend themselves.

And now the Louisiana Supreme Court has taken their side, saying in Bienvenu v. Diocese of Lafayette that the “look-back window” law violates the Church’s due process rights by eliminating the statute of limitation protections. In other words, it would be really hard for the Church to defend itself at this point… so screw the victims.

The end result is that the “look-back window” has been declared unconstitutional in Louisiana and the victims have no way of getting justice.

Writing for Balls & Strikes, attorney Steve Kennedy explains:

… the Louisiana Supreme Court’s application of the concept [of due process] to sexual abusers stretches the idea of property rights to its breaking point, while also ignoring the word from which the Clause derives its name: rights cannot be abridged without due process of law. As the dissent points out, the majority’s treatment of an absolute property right to immunity from civil liability elevates that procedural right above other, fundamental rights—like, say, not being sexually abused by an adult in a position of public trust.

…

As a concurring opinion put it, the look-back window creates a “quagmire…for defendants who will be faced with having to mount a defense after so much time has elapsed.” The problem with this reasoning is that plaintiffs find themselves in the same “quagmire.” But survivors generally only have their own word to go on, while perpetrators and the institutions protecting them circle the wagons.

The victims’ actual emotional and physical harm is apparently not as important as the the theoretical harm done to the Church by requiring them to defend themselves decades after the alleged abuse occurred.

Louisiana justices aren’t the only ones to rule against these look-back windows. Courts in Utah and Colorado have done the same. It’s a reminder that the legal system isn’t always a savior for the most vulnerable people in society and that the rules are often written to protect the mighty. Still, similar laws have been upheld in two dozen states.

SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, called on allies to “raise their voices in protest”:

The Louisiana Supreme court justices overturned a law passed by a unanimous legislature, and signed by then governor John Bel Edwards, who was supported by then attorney general and current governor Jeff Landry. All of these Louisiana officials viewed the window as constitutional. The will of the people of the state was thwarted by four men. We wonder if their actions might be considered “exceptional circumstances” that would allow for their removal or impeachment?

Four Louisiana supreme court justices – James Genovese, Scott Crichton, Jeff Hughes and Piper Griffin – agreed that the “lookback window” law was unconstitutional. The majority opinion, written by Justice Genovese, said reviving old sexual abuse claims violated the “due-process rights” of accused abusers and their enablers.

What the justices never explain in their ruling is what the victims of child sexual abuse ought to do if filing a lawsuit decades later isn’t an option. That’s because there isn’t a recourse. They’re just supposed to live with the trauma, I guess.

By prioritizing legal theory over the impact of their decision, the majority made it clear that abusive Catholic priests can get away with molesting children as long as those victims don’t process the grief until they’re much, much older.

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