Doe v. Roman Catholic Diocese of Greensburg

• Decision Date: 24 January 2022
• Docket Number: Civ. Action No. 20-1750 (EGS)
• Citation: 581 F.Supp.3d 176
• Parties: John DOE, Plaintiff, v. The ROMAN CATHOLIC DIOCESE OF GREENSBURG, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Columbia

581 F.Supp.3d 176

John DOE, Plaintiff,

v.The ROMAN CATHOLIC DIOCESE OF GREENSBURG, et al., Defendants.

Civ. Action No. 20-1750 (EGS)

United States District Court, District of Columbia.

Signed January 24, 2022

Christopher T. Nace, Paulson & Nace, PLLC, Washington, DC, Richard Martin Serbin, Pro Hac Vice, Altoona, PA, Andrew Janet, Pro Hac Vice, Janet Janet & Suggs, Pikesville, MD, Matthew M. White, Pro Hac Vice, Janet Janet & Suggs, LLC, Columbia, SC, for Plaintiff.

Peter Hugh White, Schulte Roth & Zabel LLP, Washington, DC, James G. Gorman, III, Pro Hac Vice, Mark E. Seiberling, Pro Hac Vice, Matthew Hermann Haverstick, Pro Hac Vice, Kleinbard LLC, Philadelphia, PA, for Defendants Roman Catholic Diocese of Greensburg, Edward C. Malesic, St. John the Baptist and St. Joseph.

John D. Goetz, Pro Hac Vice, Paul Michael Pohl, Pro Hac Vice, Jones Day, Pittsburgh, PA, John M. Majoras, Jones Day, Washington, DC, for Defendant Donald Wuerl.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

Emmet G. Sullivan, United States District Judge

I. Introduction

Plaintiff John Doe ("Plaintiff" or "Mr. Doe") brings this case against Defendants Roman Catholic Diocese of Greensburg; Edward C. Malesic, Bishop of the Diocese of Greensburg; St. John the Baptist and St. Joseph parish, successor entity to St. Joseph's Roman Catholic Church in Everson, Pennsylvania (collectively, hereinafter "Greensburg Defendants"); and Donald Wuerl ("Mr. Wuerl"), the former Bishop of the Diocese of Pittsburgh and former Archbishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., based on alleged sexual abuse Mr. Doe suffered as a minor.¹ See Ex. A Notice of Removal ("Compl."), ECF No. 1-1; Mot. Proceed via Pseudonym, ECF No. 5-1. The Greensburg Defendants and Mr. Wuerl both seek to have this case dismissed. See Motion to Dismiss ("Greensburg Defs.’ Mot."), ECF No. 36; Defendant Donald W. Wuerl's Motion to Dismiss ("Def. Wuerl's Mot."), ECF No. 37. Mr. Doe opposes both motions. See Mem. in Opp'n to Greensburg Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss ("Pl.’s Opp'n to Greensburg Defs."), ECF No. 39; Mem. in Opp'n to Donald Wuerl's Motion to Dismiss ("Pl.’s Opp'n to Def. Wuerl"), ECF No. 40.

Upon consideration of the motions, responses, and the replies thereto, the applicable law and regulations, the entire record and the materials cited therein, the Court GRANTS IN PART and DENIES IN PART the Greensburg Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss, ECF No. 36; and DENIES Mr. Wuerl's Motion to Dismiss, ECF No. 37.

II. Factual and Procedural Background

On June 5, 2020, Mr. Doe brought suit in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia ("Superior Court") against Defendants alleging the following causes of action: (1) Count I—Negligence, see Compl., ECF No. 1-1 ¶¶ 52-60; (2) Count II—Negligent Supervision, Monitoring, Training, and Retention, see id. ¶¶ 61-70; (3) Count III—Breach of Special Duty, see id. ¶¶ 71-78; (4) Count IV—Constructive Fraud, see id. ¶¶ 79-85; and (5) Count V—Civil Conspiracy to Commit Fraud, see id. ¶¶ 86-93. The Diocese and Parish are named as defendants on all counts. Bishop Malesic and Cardinal Wuerl are named only in Count V of the Complaint.²

Mr. Doe seeks compensatory and punitive damages on his claims, each of which arise from the alleged sexual abuse he suffered as a minor from approximately 1991 to 1997—or from when he was between 11 and 17 years old—largely at the hands of Joseph L. Sredzinski, the now-deceased priest of Saint Joseph's Roman Catholic Church ("the Parish"). Compl., ECF No. 1-1 ¶¶ 3, 34. At the time, Mr. Doe resided in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, and attended the Parish, located within the Diocese of Greensburg (the "Greensburg Diocese"). Id. ¶¶ 4, 6, 8, 29. During this time, Mr. Sredzinski served as priest of the Parish, and Mr. Wuerl served as bishop of the Diocese of Pittsburgh, before beginning his service as Archbishop of Washington in 2006. Id. ¶ 9.

Mr. Doe asserts that he was groomed by Mr. Sredzinski starting at the age of 9. See Compl., ECF No. 1-1 at ¶ 29–30. Mr. Doe details an escalating pattern of alleged sexual abuse over the course of his childhood. In the second half of 1991, when he was 11 years old, he alleges that Mr. Sredzinski took him to the Parish's rectory, stripped him naked, and kissed him all over his body, including on Mr. Doe's anal area. Id. ¶ 31. Mr. Doe contends that on an occasion soon thereafter, Mr. Sredzinski anally penetrated him. Id. ¶ 32. Mr. Doe alleges that this continued for several years, with Mr. Sredzinski repeatedly raping him violently and forcing him to perform fellatio, "claiming Plaintiff was Sredzinski's servant through God and needed to internalize Sredzinski's seed." Id. ¶¶ 32–34, 40. Mr. Doe alleges that on multiple occasions, Mr. Sredzinski invited other priests to the Rectory, who then purportedly took turns raping him. Id. ¶ 35.

As per the Complaint, the sexual abuse allegedly occurred at the Parish rectory in Pennsylvania and on approximately thirty trips to Washington, D.C., during which Mr. Sredzinski shared a hotel room with Mr. Doe and raped him on every occasion. Id. ¶¶ 36, 39-40. On a few of these trips, Mr. Doe alleges that Defendant Cardinal Wuerl was present in the hotel room and witnessed Mr. Doe being abused by Mr. Sredzinski; rather than stopping the abuse, Mr. Wuerl allegedly proceeded to masturbate. See id. ¶ 42. Mr. Doe asserts that many of these trips were church-sponsored, and coordinated by the Greensburg Diocese, Bishops of that Diocese, and the Parish, including an annual trip to a pro-life rally, sports competitions, and other political or religious events. Id. ¶¶ 31, 35–38. Others trips to D.C. were vacations. Id. ¶ 36.

Mr. Doe asserts that he reported the sexual abuse, to no avail, at several points. Id. ¶¶ 44-46. At age 13, Mr. Doe states that he reported the abuse to the Diocese in the form of two messages left with the office of the Bishop of the Diocese, but his messages were never returned. Id. ¶ 44. He states that he also reported the abuse to two different officials at his Catholic high school, which is under the Diocese's control. Id. ¶ 46. He adds that at age 15, he allegedly confronted Mr. Wuerl, who denied ever witnessing the abuse and stated that Mr. Doe must be lying or hallucinating. Id. ¶ 45.

In addition to his own purported reports of the alleged sexual abuse, Mr. Doe points to evidence that the Diocese and Parish had actual or constructive knowledge that Mr. Sredzinski had inappropriate relationships with minor boys since at least as early as 1991. See generally Office of the Pennsylvania Attorney General, Pennsylvania Diocese Victims Report ("Grand Jury Report"), available at https://www.attorneygeneral.gov/report/ (last accessed January 5, 2022). The Court takes judicial notice of the evidence to which Mr. Doe refers, a multi-year Pennsylvania Grand Jury Investigative Report on child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in Pennsylvania, published in 2018. See Pharm. Rsch. & Manufacturers of Am. v. United States Dep't of Health & Hum. Servs. , 43 F. Supp. 3d 28, 33 (D.D.C. 2014) (stating that "[c]ourts in this jurisdiction have frequently taken judicial notice of information posted on official public websites of government agencies," and collecting cases). According to the Grand Jury Report, Tim Shoemaker, then the Mayor of Everson, contacted Father Roger Statnick, then a priest of the Diocese, as far back as 1991, to inform him of his concerns about Mr. Sredzinski's inappropriate relationships with multiple local boys, including an incident where he was found in a parked car with a young boy in a cemetery late at night. See Office of the Pennsylvania Attorney General, Grand Jury Report at 506, available at https://www.attorneygeneral.gov/report/. As per the Grand Jury Report, on January 14, 1994, the Bishop of the Diocese himself wrote a letter to Mr. Sredzinski's sister acknowledging the Mayor's outreach and the dangers posed by Mr. Sredzinski's actions in terms of criminal and civil liability. Id. at 509. The Grand Jury Report concluded that the Pennsylvania dioceses (including the Diocese of Greensburg) were far more complicit in covering up abuse by priests than was previously known by the public. The Report stated as follows:

While each church district had its idiosyncrasies, the pattern was pretty much the same. The main thing was not to help children, but to avoid ‘scandal.’ That is not our word, but theirs; it appears over and over again in the documents we recovered. Abuse complaints were kept locked up in a ‘secret archive.’ That is not our word, but theirs; the church's Code of Canon Law specifically requires the diocese to maintain such an archive. Only the bishop can have the key.

Id. at 2. The Grand Jury Report also made findings of circumstantial evidence that were suggestive of a conspiracy to conceal abuse amongst different dioceses and leaders. Id. at 297 (noting that the dioceses had such commonalities in their plans to fraudulently conceal sexual abuse from law enforcement, the public, and potential victims that "[i]t seemed as if there was a script").

Mr. Doe contends that none of the information as to Mr. Sredzinski's alleged child abuse was ever communicated to him, his family, or anyone else who could have protected him from the ensuing events. See Pl.’s Opp'n to Greensburg Defs., ECF No. 39 at 11. Instead, he states that he and his family "reasonably relied on the Diocese and Parish's omission of these facts, and/or statements in sermons, catechism classes, and other teachings that Catholic priests were trustworthy authority figures." Compl., ECF No. 1-1 ¶ 20, 73. Mr. Doe alleges that the abuse left him with serious and permanent physical and emotional injuries, including depression, post-traumatic stress disorder

, hypertension, panic attacks, difficulties with trust and human interactions, and a loss of faith, educational and employment opportunities. See Compl., ECF No. 1-1 at 10-11.

Mr. Doe brought suit against the Defendants on June 5,...