by Rob Jenner Jenner Law, P.C. Baltimore, Maryland Last month a dedicated team of lawyers presented oral argument before the Maryland Supreme Court in support of the Maryland Child Victims Act (CVA) of 2023. The heart of the legal battle concerned the statutory language that existed in the 2017...
by Leslie C. Griffin* This post will tell you about them. New Hampshire has one Catholic Diocese of Manchester, which includes many schools and parishes. New Hampshire has changed its statute of limitations [SOL] for sexual abuse several times. The SOL determines when your time begins and ends to...
by Leslie C. Griffin* There is one Roman Catholic diocese in Vermont, the Diocese of Burlington.1 On September 30, 2024, Kevin O’Connor reported that the diocese had gone into bankruptcy, becoming the fortieth Catholic organization to do so.2 In the bankruptcy papers, Bishop John McDermott of the...
by Leslie C. Griffin* You have probably read more about abuse and abusers in my last four blog posts than you believed was even possible. It is an exhausting list. Yet there are still many more cases before us, even now, in 2024. As the statutes of limitations change, new cases begin in...
CHILD USA together with the Oregon Trial Lawyers Association, Zero Abuse Project, Oregon Abuse Advocates & Survivors in Service, National Crime Victim Law Institute, and The National Center for Victims of Crime submitted this amicus brief urging the Court to deny Defendants' veiled request for...
by Leslie C. Griffin* An option to a civil case filed against a defendant is for the defendant to settle the case. There is a long trail of settlements to trace in the Massachusetts abuse cases. Settlements often occurred because of the statutes of limitations, and because Massachusetts lawyers...
by Leslie C. Griffin* In blog post 2 I told you about the criminal cases against church personnel. They also faced many civil cases, as the courts decided who should be held liable for abuse. The abuser, certainly. But what about the bishops, cardinals, archdiocese and dioceses who employed and...
by Leslie C. Griffin* In my first Massachusetts blog post, I explained why reporting requirements, statutes of limitations, and charitable immunity blocked many lawsuits against Catholic abusers. Although some abusers escaped liability because of those protections, many Catholics were convicted of...
by Leslie C. Griffin* Introduction Have you seen the movie? Spotlight won the Academy Award for best picture in 2015. That film tells the story of the Boston Globe reporters who investigated sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church in Massachusetts. The abuse story was unbelievable, yet true. To...