Doe v. Saint Joseph's Catholic Church

• Decision Date: 29 October 2020
• Docket Number: A20A0784
• Citation: 850 S.E.2d 267,357 Ga.App. 710
• Parties: DOE v. SAINT JOSEPH'S CATHOLIC CHURCH et al.
• Court: Georgia Court of Appeals

357 Ga.App. 710

850 S.E.2d 267

DOE

v.SAINT JOSEPH'S CATHOLIC CHURCH et al.

A20A0784

Court of Appeals of Georgia.

October 29, 2020

Reconsideration Denied November 12, 2020

Michael Brian Terry, Jane D. Vincent, Atlanta, Darren Wade Penn, Alexandra "Sachi" Cole, for Appellant.

Edward H. Wasmuth Jr., Atlanta, for Appellee.

Doyle, Presiding Judge.

In 2018, Philip Doe sued Archbishop Wilton Gregory, the Archdiocese of Atlanta, and Saint Joseph's Catholic Church based on alleged childhood sexual abuse he suffered while he was an altar boy at Saint Joseph's Church in the late 1970s. Doe alleged that the defendants committed several torts, including maintaining a public nuisance plus a violation of the Georgia Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations ("RICO") Act.¹ The defendants moved to dismiss Doe's complaint pursuant to OCGA § 9-11-12 (b) (6), arguing that it was time-barred, and the trial court granted the motion. Doe now appeals, contending that the trial court erred in its rulings that (1) his non-nuisance tort and RICO claims were time-barred under OCGA § 9-3-33.1, and (2) the defendants’ conduct in allegedly concealing the presence of sex offenders in their clergy does not constitute a public nuisance under the law. For the reasons that follow, we affirm.

We review a trial court's ruling on a motion to dismiss de novo. Our role is to determine whether the allegations of the complaint, when construed in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, and with all doubts resolved in the plaintiff's favor, disclose with certainty that the plaintiff would not be entitled to relief under any state of provable facts.²

Doe's verified complaint alleges that he was a parishioner at Saint Joseph's Church and served there as an altar boy from the approximate ages of 12 to 15. During this time, Doe was supervised by Father J. Douglas Edwards, who was a priest assigned to Saint Joseph's Church by the Archdiocese of Atlanta. Doe alleges that Edwards sexually molested him approximately eight to ten times during the years 1976 to 1978. Doe experienced shame, anger, and depression as a result of the abuse, and he did not confront Edwards or the church at the time of the abuse.

In November 2018, the Archbishop of Atlanta — Wilton Gregory — issued a public statement acknowledging and apologizing for "the damage that young lives have suffered" due to sexual abuse by Catholic clergy. The statement was accompanied by a list of "credibly accused clergy," which included Edwards and shows that prior to his 1975-1981 tenure at Saint Joseph's, Edwards held positions at nine different Catholic churches over fourteen years, plus a two-year leave of absence. According to the list, Edwards died in 1997.

Upon learning about the statement and the naming of Edwards as a "credibly accused" clergy member, Doe filed the present action against Archbishop Gregory, the Archdiocese of Atlanta, and Saint Joseph's church. Doe's complaint, as amended, seeks to establish liability on the part of the defendants for maintaining a public nuisance (Counts 1 and 2); failure to train, supervise, and monitor clergy (Count 3); negligent retention (Count 4); failure to warn (Count 5); failure to provide security (Count 6); respondeat superior (Count 7); breach of fiduciary duty (Count 8); fraudulent misrepresentation and concealment (Counts 9 and 10); and RICO violations (Count 11). The defendants answered and moved to dismiss Doe's complaint on the ground that it was time-barred. Following a hearing, the trial court entered an order granting the motion to dismiss, giving rise to this appeal.

1. In multiple enumerations of error, Doe argues that the trial court erred by ruling that his non-nuisance claims were time-barred. Based on the claims at issue and the statutory time limitations on their viability, we disagree.

(a) Applicability of OCGA § 9-3-33.1. We begin by noting that the trial court ruled that OCGA § 9-3-33.1 acts as a statute of repose and bars Doe's non-nuisance tort claims (Counts 3 through 10). OCGA § 9-3-33.1 (a) (2) provides that "any civil action for recovery of damages suffered as a result of childhood sexual abuse committed before July 1, 2015, shall be commenced on or before the date the plaintiff attains the age of 23 years." The subsection defines "childhood sexual abuse" as "any act committed by the defendant against the plaintiff " that would constitute a criminal offense of rape, sodomy, child molestation, pandering, sexual battery, or other similar enumerated crimes.³ Thus, under this Code section, the time limit applies to actions for recovery of damages suffered as a result of conduct by the defendant that are sex-based crimes.⁴

Here, Doe does not allege that any of the named defendants (Archbishop Gregory, the Archdiocese of Atlanta, and Saint Joseph's church) engaged in conduct against him that was a criminal offense listed in OCGA § 9-3-33.1 (a) (1).⁵ None of the defendants’ alleged conduct amounts to child molestation or other listed sex crime, so the present action is not one seeking damages for "childhood sexual abuse" as defined in the statute. Rather, as Doe explains, it is an action more broadly based on the defendants’ breach of duties they owed to him to protect him as a minor and parishioner and the defendants’ conduct in allegedly covering up the abuse. Accordingly, OCGA § 9-3-33.1 does not apply, and any argument that it operated as a statute of repose is inapposite in this case.

(b) Application of statute of limitation. Given that the specific rule in OCGA § 9-3-33.1 does not apply, we turn to the default statute of limitation. Although Doe's complaint alleges several different non-nuisance torts, his injuries are to his person (as opposed to a property interest), so we look to the two-year statute of limitation for injuries to the person.⁶

The statute of limitation begins to run on any given claim on the date the claim accrues — in other words, on the date that suit on the claim can first be brought. When the question is raised as to whether an action is barred by a statute of limitations, the true test to determine when the cause of action accrued is to ascertain the time when the plaintiff could first have maintained his action to a successful result.⁷

Under this rule, Doe was a minor when his injuries occurred. According to the complaint, Doe was last molested in 1978 (when he was still a minor), and at that time he had suffered a legally cognizable injury as a result of the defendants’ breach of their alleged duties to him by failing to train, supervise, and monitor Edwards (Count 3); negligently retaining Edwards (Count 4); failing to warn Doe (Count 5); failing to provide proper security (Count 6); acting as a vicariously liable employer (Count 7); breaching alleged fiduciary duties owed to Doe (Count 8); and fraudulently misrepresenting or concealing information regarding Edwards's employment or conduct (Count 9, alleging tolling of the statute of limitations). Thus, as to those counts, his cause of action had accrued against the defendants named in this suit when he was molested by Edwards in 1978.⁸

Because Doe was a minor in 1978, the running of any statute of limitation would be tolled until he reached 18 years of age.⁹ According to Doe's complaint, he reached the age of majority in 1982, so absent any additional tolling, the applicable statute of limitation would have begun running then, and the non-nuisance counts would have expired long before he filed this action in 2018.¹⁰ Thus, the viability of Doe's non-nuisance tort claims depends on whether the statute of limitation for those claims was tolled.

(c) Tolling of statute of limitation. Doe argues that the statute of limitation should have tolled until 2018, when he first learned that the defendants allegedly knew of Edwards's predatory conduct and had allegedly covered up this knowledge — presumably evidenced by the fact that Edwards held nine different positions plus a leave of absence over the fourteen years leading up to his placement at Saint Joseph's church.

Under OCGA § 9-3-96, "[i]f the defendant or those under whom he claims are guilty of a fraud by which the plaintiff has been debarred or deterred from bringing an action, the period of limitation shall run only from the time of the plaintiff's discovery of the fraud." Here, under the facts alleged in the complaint, Doe knew he had been injured, he knew the identity of the perpetrator, and he was aware of the church's inaction. Doe's lack of knowledge of the defendants’ alleged awareness of Edwards’ misconduct did not render his tort claims inchoate or otherwise inactionable, even assuming, as Doe argues, that he held a confidential relationship with the defendants. Tolling is triggered by a fraud that "conceals a wrong done to a would-be plaintiff so as to deter or debar the would-be plaintiff from his or her cause of action, i.e., prevent it from being pursued, and therefore, coming into existence."¹¹ There is no question that the facts alleged by Doe implicate the defendants in a fraud "involv[ing] moral turpitude,"¹² but to toll the statute of limitation, the fraud must have prevented Doe from pursuing his claims.¹³ When Edwards abused Doe, Doe was aware at that time that the church had breached its duties to him by hiring Edwards, exposing Doe to Edwards, and failing to protect Doe from Edwards. The defendants’ alleged conduct in tolerating this abuse and keeping it secret from the public and parishioners did not, as a legal matter, debar Doe from pursuing the tort claims at issue. That the defendants might have asserted a defense that they were unaware of Edwards's predatory conduct did not preclude Doe from maintaining the tort claims against the defendants before the statute of limitations ran on those claims. Although Archbishop Gregory's 2018 statement appears to indicate that such a defense would have been unavailing, this does not mean that Doe's non-nuisance tort claims were viable...