Doe v. M.J.

• Citation: 482 P.3d 596
• Decision Date: 15 January 2021
• Docket Number: No. 121,768,121,768
• Parties: John DOE H.B., an Individual, Appellee, v. M.J., Individually and in his Capacity as a Priest at St. Matthew Parish, and the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Kansas City, Kansas, a Kansas Not for Profit Corporation, Appellants.
• Court: Court of Appeals of Kansas

482 P.3d 596

John DOE H.B., an Individual, Appellee, v. M.J., Individually and in his Capacity as a Priest at St. Matthew Parish, and the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Kansas City, Kansas, a Kansas Not for Profit Corporation, Appellants.

No. 121,768

Court of Appeals of Kansas.

Opinion filed January 15, 2021.

Chad E. Blomberg, Mara H. Cohara, and Elizabeth D. Hatting, of Lathrop GPM LLP, of Kansas City, Missouri, Carrie E. Josserand, of the same firm, of Overland Park, and Ross Henry Stewart, of Stewart Law Office, LLC, of Overland Park, for appellants.

Rebecca M. Randles, of Randles Mata, LLC, of Kansas City, Missouri, for appellee.

Before Bruns, P.J., Warner, J., and Burgess, S.J.

Warner, J.:

Ordinarily, a plaintiff must assert tort claims within 1 to 2 years after he or she is injured. This timeframe prevents witnesses' memories and other evidence from going stale with the passage of time. But the Kansas Legislature has recognized that some types of claims—such as claims for injuries suffered by a minor—may warrant a longer timeline for filing suit.

This case involves a special statutory timeline for claims for damages suffered as a result of childhood sexual abuse. Under K.S.A. 2019 Supp. 60-523, a plaintiff may file suit up to 3 years after the person learns that his or her injury resulted from such abuse—even if that causation is determined years or decades later. This statute applies to injuries resulting from childhood abuse that occurred on or after July 1, 1984.

John Doe H.B. filed this suit in August 2017, alleging he was sexually abused by a Catholic priest more than 30 years ago. H.B.'s petition included claims against the former priest who committed the abuse and the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Kansas City, Kansas, for failing to train and supervise the priest and failing to warn or protect H.B. After limited discovery, the defendants filed motions for summary judgment, alleging H.B.'s injuries occurred before July 1984 and that he filed his petition more than 3 years after he discovered them. The Archdiocese also claimed that the extended timeline in K.S.A. 2019 Supp. 60-523 only applied to claims against sexual perpetrators, not institutional defendants who did not personally commit the abuse.

The district court denied the defendants' motions, finding disputed issues of fact remained regarding when the last instance of sexual abuse occurred and when H.B. reasonably discovered that his injuries resulted from that abuse. The court also interpreted K.S.A. 2019 Supp. 60-523 broadly to apply to any claims for damages caused by childhood sexual abuse, whether against the individual perpetrator or another defendant. We granted the defendants' application for an interlocutory appeal of these findings. After carefully considering the relevant statutes, the parties' arguments, and the record before us, we affirm the district court's ruling.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

On August 31, 2017, H.B. filed a petition against M.J., a former Catholic priest, individually and in his capacity as a priest for the Archdiocese in the 1980s. H.B. alleged that M.J. had engaged in a pattern of sexual abuse when M.J. was assigned to parishes in northeast Kansas. H.B.'s petition also asserted multiple claims against the Archdiocese, alleging that the church failed to train and supervise M.J., failed to warn H.B. of M.J.'s behavior and protect H.B., and attempted to cover up M.J.'s misconduct.

H.B.'s petition stated that M.J. had sexually abused H.B. multiple times at the rectory at St. Matthew's parish in Topeka, where M.J. lived. H.B. also alleged that M.J. abused him at the Topeka YMCA and the Athletic Men's Club, as well as on road trips to other churches and to M.J.'s parents' house. H.B. asserted that "[m]ultiple priests and lay persons within the Archdiocese knew or should have known that [M.J.] was sexually abusing children, including [himself]." H.B.'s petition alleged that this abuse occurred when he was approximately between the ages of 9 and 12 years old and between his fourth- and seventh-grade years.

In his petition, H.B. alleged that the years of abuse caused him "to develop various psychological coping mechanisms and symptoms of psychological distress, including great shame, guilt, self-blame and depression [that rendered him] unable [to] discover that he was a victim of sexual abuse." He stated that he had "repressed all memory of the abuse until approximately late fall 2015 when news reports of sexual abuse by priests incardinated in Guam [where H.B. lives] hit the media."

Kansas statutes require any claim for damages, including claims of childhood sexual abuse, to be brought within certain time periods. Relevant here:

• K.S.A. 60-515 governs claims by people who are under a legal disability, which includes minors. This statute allows anyone who suffers an injury while he or she is under the age of 18 to bring a claim within 1 year of reaching the age of majority. K.S.A. 60-515(a). At the same time, no claims may be brought, as a matter of law, more than 8 years after the offending act. K.S.A. 60-515(a).

• The only exception to these time limitations are for claims of childhood sexual abuse, which are governed by K.S.A. 2019 Supp. 60-523. This statute states that claims resulting from such abuse must be brought within 3 years of when a person turns 18 or when the person reasonably should have discovered his or her injuries were caused by childhood sexual abuse, whichever is later. K.S.A. 2019 Supp. 60-523(a).

Unlike K.S.A. 60-515, K.S.A. 2019 Supp. 60-523 does not include an 8-year repose, or any repose, that extinguishes the claims to which it applies. But the extended limitations period in K.S.A. 2019 Supp. 60-523 only applies to claims that would not have been otherwise time-barred when that statute became effective on July 1, 1992. See K.S.A. 2019 Supp. 60-523(d). Practically speaking, this means that the longer limitation on abuse claims brought under K.S.A. 2019 Supp. 60-523 does not apply to offending acts that occurred before July 1, 1984, as those claims were extinguished as a matter of law under K.S.A. 60-515(a) before K.S.A. 2019 Supp. 60-523 became law.

The Archdiocese and M.J. moved to dismiss H.B.'s petition based on these statutes. The defendants asserted, based on the allegations in H.B.'s petition, that the alleged abuse must have ended in April 1984 (when H.B. turned 13) or May 1984 (at the end of his seventh-grade school year). Thus, H.B.'s claims were long outside the 1-year statute of limitations and 8-year statute of repose in K.S.A. 60-515. And based on the allegations in the petition, the defendants argued that H.B.'s claims were not saved by K.S.A. 2019 Supp. 60-523 because they had expired more than 8 years before that statute became effective. The Archdiocese further argued that even if H.B.'s petition was timely under K.S.A. 2019 Supp. 60-523, that statute only applied to claims against the person who actually perpetrated the abuse, not an institutional, nonperpetrator-defendant.

H.B. responded by explaining that because the memories of his abuse had long been suppressed, it was "very difficult for [H.B.] to determine the exact date that the abuse ended." Thus, the petition used intentionally vague language regarding the timeline of the sexual abuse; for example, he had not intended the approximate timeframes he alleged to indicate that the abuse ended on his last day of seventh grade or the day before his 13th birthday. H.B. agreed, however, that the dates alleged in his petition were "barely within the statute of repose" and conceded that K.S.A. 2019 Supp. 60-523 would not revive his claims if they were barred by K.S.A. 60-515(a)'s statute of repose.

The district court denied the motions to dismiss and ordered the parties to conduct limited discovery "to ascertain when these events could have possibly happened or the last date these events could have possible happened." The parties thus conducted discovery to determine two factual points:

(1) The last date of the childhood sexual abuse alleged in the petition—to ascertain whether it occurred before or after July 1, 1984, and thus whether H.B.'s claims were barred by K.S.A. 60-515's 8-year statute of repose.

(2) The date H.B. discovered (or reasonably should have discovered) that his injuries resulted from childhood sexual abuse—i.e., whether H.B.'s August 2017 petition was filed within K.S.A. 2019 Supp. 60-523's 3-year limitation period.

According to records produced by the Archdiocese, M.J. was formally assigned as a priest at St. Matthew's parish from July 1981 through June 1983. He was transferred to a parish in Overland Park for the following year and to a parish in Kansas City after that. At H.B.'s request, the Archdiocese also provided a log showing who presided over the funeral Mass of a local boy in May 1985; these records listed the then-pastor at St. Matthew's, and not M.J., as the celebrant.

At his deposition, H.B. described M.J.'s pattern of sexual abuse. H.B. testified that he remembered the abuse starting around when he served as an altar boy beginning in fourth grade. H.B. indicated that M.J.'s abusive acts continued over the course of the next few years at several locations, including St. Matthew's church and rectory in Topeka; at M.J.'s parents' house; at Savior of the World Seminary in Kansas City, Kansas; at a YMCA; and in the car while driving to Kansas City, Meriden, and Paxico, where M.J. would sometimes travel to celebrate Mass.

When asked if the sexual abuse ended after he was 12, H.B. replied "Oh, no. It still continued until I was in the eighth grade." H.B. explained that the abuse continued throughout the time he was a server at St. Matthew's, a role he performed until he got caught sneaking sacramental wine in eighth grade. H.B. indicated that it was M.J. who lectured him and the other altar boys who were caught in that act. And H.B. noted that although M.J. was...