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How Baltimore law firms helped the Catholic church manage sexual abuse claims
In 1987, a law firm for the Archdiocese of Baltimore contacted a prosecutor with a problem: was the church obligated to report a priest who had lately been accused of trying to rape a teenage woman a ten years before? The reply was no, in accordance to final week’s comprehensive report into sexual abuse and coverups in the archdiocese. But the priest could be charged with assault, battery or tried rape, the assistant state’s attorney mentioned. Neither the law firm nor the archdiocesan official who spoke to the prosecutor provided the identify of the priest, Father Thomas J. Bauernfeind, or formally documented that a girl had named Bauernfeind as her…
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Portland Diocese challenging 2021 Maine law lifting statute of limitations on childhood abuse claims
Lawyer Michael Bigos, who signifies customers suing the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland, speaks all through a news convention in Lewiston on Wednesday. Employees image by Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Staff members Photographer The Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland is difficult the constitutionality of a condition regulation that taken off the statute of restrictions for any individual who would like to file a lawsuit alleging that they knowledgeable childhood sexual abuse in Maine. When the legislation removing the time restrict for childhood abuse statements passed in the summer months of 2021 it opened the door for persons to sue the diocese for many years-old incidents. The diocese says the Legislature overstepped its…
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A change in Maine law prompts a wave of new church abuse allegations
The elimination of the statute of limitations was a salve for men and women like Robert Dupuis, 73, who stated he was abused by a priest when he was 12 yrs old and experienced hardly ever been able to confront the church as an adult. In June, he filed accommodate versus the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland. Dupuis is considerably from on your own. His law firm, Michael Bigos, head of the intercourse abuse observe at Berman & Simmons in Lewiston, explained his agency is symbolizing “approximately 100″ consumers who are now equipped to provide statements from the Catholic Church and other defendants. Far more than half of people shoppers,…
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New York law gives adult sex abuse survivors more time to sue. But does it go far enough?
A Safe and sound Horizon PSA about the Grownup Survivors Act performs in Times Square throughout a push convention on the new law in New York in 2022. (Julia Nikhinson/AP) In the coming months, grownup sexual abuse lawsuits are anticipated to flood New York’s civil courts since of a condition regulation that a short while ago went into impact. The New York Grownup Survivors Act results in a one-year window for survivors of sexual assault that transpired when they had been more than the age of 18 to sue their alleged abusers, irrespective of when the abuse occurred. According to RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest Countrywide Community), every single 68…
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Flood of sexual abuse lawsuits expected in New York as new law takes effect | Sexual harassment
A trickle of higher-profile sexual abuse lawsuits passing as a result of New York’s civil courts is probably to come to be a flood in the coming months because of a new, just one-yr window for time-expired promises. By now, some bold-faced names from the worlds of arts, finance and politics have turn out to be included, which include Donald Trump and banker Leon Black. A broad legislative sweep, the New York Adult Survivors Act, enables for adult survivors to file lawsuits and for the alleged abusers or their estates, as nicely as enterprises and institutions that enabled the carry out by disregarding or encouraging an environment that permitted the…











