For Whom the Church Bells Toll: the Supreme Court of Georgia Resolves the Issue of Whether Fraud Can Toll the Statute of Limitations for Sexual Abuse Claims

• Publication year: 2023

For Whom the Church Bells Toll: The Supreme Court of Georgia Resolves the Issue of Whether Fraud Can Toll the Statute of Limitations for Sexual Abuse Claims

Sydney Thompson

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For Whom the Church Bells Toll: The Supreme Court of Georgia Resolves the Issue of Whether Fraud Can Toll the Statute of Limitations for Sexual Abuse Claims

Sydney Thompson^*

I. INTRODUCTION

In January of 2002, the Boston Globe published an article detailing widespread allegations of child sexual abuse by serial pedophiles and a sophisticated coverup that implicated high ranking clergy members.¹ In the aftermath of the article, thousands of men and women from across the United States came forward with their own allegations, which revealed patterns of abuse and deception in dioceses around the country.² The wave of litigation that followed raised compelling questions about

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statutes of limitations, discovery rules, and the long term effects of childhood sexual abuse.

Twenty years after the Globe's article, the Supreme Court of Georgia decided its first case³ involving sexual abuse allegations against the Catholic Church in Doe v. Saint Joseph's Catholic Church.⁴ As has been true nationally, the Church raised a statute of limitations defense to combat the plaintiff's appalling allegations. In an unexpected turn of events, the supreme court agreed with the plaintiff's tolling argument, which was based on his assertion that the Church engaged in fraud, preventing him from discovering his legal claims decades earlier. The court's decision to apply Georgia's fraud statute to the plaintiff's allegations more broadly signals significant changes in the legal treatment of childhood sexual abuse survivors in Georgia.

II. FACTUAL BACKGROUND

In 2018, a former altar boy, using the pseudonym "Philip Doe," filed a lawsuit against the Catholic Church, specifically the Archdiocese of Atlanta; the acting Archbishop, Wilton Gregory; and Saint Joseph's Catholic Church in Cobb County Superior Court.⁵ Doe alleged that he was sexually molested and abused by Father J. Douglas Edwards when Doe was a minor between the ages of twelve and fifteen and was serving as an altar boy at Saint Joseph's in the late 1970s. Father Edwards was employed by the Church to oversee the daily operations of Saint Joseph's from 1976 to 1981. He was also tasked with training and supervising altar boys during Mass, regular meetings, and practices. In this role, Edwards often took groups of boys on overnight trips to his home on Lake Allatoona in Acworth, Georgia.⁶ Doe alleged that Father Edwards sexually molested him approximately eight-to-ten times and that, as a result, he suffered a loss of spirituality and "shame, anger, and depression" that followed him into adulthood.⁷

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Doe did not take legal action against the Church until he was in his mid 50s in 2018.⁸ Doe filed suit after Archbishop Gregory made two announcements on behalf of the Church in August and November of that year.⁹ In August, Gregory issued public statements apologizing for "sexual abuse by Church leaders of children," the failure of Church leaders to protect children from "damaging and deviant behavior," and the Church's disbelief and neglect of those who came forward about the abuse decades earlier.¹⁰ Then, in November, Gregory released a list of priests credibly accused of sexually abusing minors. The list included Father Edwards and showed that in the fourteen years prior to his transfer to Saint Joseph's, he had served at nine different Catholic churches and had taken a year-long leave of absence. Father Edwards died in 1997.¹¹

At the heart of his complaint, Doe alleged that the Atlanta Archdiocese and other archdioceses across the country knew that Father Edwards and priests like him had histories of sexually abusing minors under their supervision.¹² He argued that despite this information the Church continued to encourage young parishioners like Doe to serve the Church as altar boys while it engaged in a methodical cover-up effort to conceal the danger posed by these priests.¹³

In his original complaint, Doe asserted two different categories of claims against the Church.¹⁴ First, he asserted claims for public nuisance based on the Defendants' actions to "maintain and conceal the presence of child predators within their organizations" which endangered members of the general public, specifically children.¹⁵ Second, Doe asserted claims for negligent failure to train, supervise, and monitor; negligent retention; negligent failure to warn; negligent failure to provide security; respondeat superior; and breach of fiduciary duty, all arising from the Church's failure to take any sort of action despite its knowledge of Edward's dangerous behavior.¹⁶

Months after the original filing, Doe amended his complaint to include claims for fraudulent misrepresentation and concealment, arguing that

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because the Church concealed the credible accusations against Edwards, his claims did not accrue until 2018.¹⁷ These claims were premised on Doe's special relationship with the Church and the duty that arose from this relationship—a duty that required the Church to disclose what it knew about Edwards to Doe and his parents.¹⁸ According to Doe, Edwards was presented to parishioners as a trustworthy leader and mentor while the Church made express commitments to "developing the spiritual and moral character" of the children entrusted to its care.¹⁹ Specifically, Doe alleged that the defendants made several misrepresentations regarding (1) the prevalence of sexual predators among the clergy, (2) the Church's knowledge of crimes previously committed by Edwards, and (3) the danger specifically posed by Edwards to children like Doe. Doe asserted that he and his parents relied on these misrepresentations, and that Doe was sexually abused as a result. Further, Doe argued that by allowing Edwards to remain in the clergy and failing to disclose his past crimes to law enforcement, victims, and parents, the defendants effectively concealed vital and material information that would have prevented his abuse. Most importantly, Doe claimed that the Church's omissions prevented him from protecting himself from Edwards and from discovering information necessary for many of his legal claims.²⁰

The Church moved to dismiss Doe's amended complaint, arguing that all his claims, including those for fraudulent misrepresentation and concealment, were barred by the statute of limitations.²¹ The superior court granted the Church's motion, rejecting Doe's argument that the limitations period was tolled until November 2018 when he discovered the depth of the Church's knowledge and concealment of Edwards' sexual predation.²² The court found that Doe's allegations of fraud did not toll the limitations period for his tort claims because he failed to adequately plead the elements of fraud.²³ In making this determination, the court first concluded that Doe discovered the alleged fraud in the 1970s and that Doe was on notice "that any of the alleged false representations about Edwards were not true once Edwards allegedly abused him."²⁴ The

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court then concluded that Doe failed to plead any facts showing that the defendants prevented him from filing a lawsuit because, again, Doe discovered the abuse when it occurred in the 1970s.²⁵ Finally, the court concluded that Doe failed to plead facts demonstrating his reasonable diligence in discovering his causes of action and that his alleged special relationship with the Church did not support his claim of fraud.²⁶

Before concluding its order, the court discussed Georgia's childhood sexual abuse statute and its inapplicability to Doe's claims.²⁷ The court found that the plain language of the statute, O.C.G.A. § 9-3-33.1,²⁸ did not apply to Doe's claims because it prescribes a period of repose—the plaintiff's twenty-third birthday—after which a plaintiff's claims are extinguished regardless of when the abuse occurred or when the plaintiff discovered the injury.²⁹ In sum, all of Doe's claims—including the Georgia Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act violations added in the amended complaint—were time-barred by the statute of limitations.³⁰

In its brief opinion, the Georgia Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal, holding that Doe's claims were not subject to tolling under the fraud statute for the same reasons found by the superior court, namely because "Doe knew he had been injured, he knew the identity of the perpetrator, and he was aware of the Church's inaction" when he was abused.³¹ Without addressing the issue of whether a special relationship with the Church justified Doe's reliance on its representations of Edwards, the court of appeals determined that the fraudulent concealment and misrepresentation claims were also time-barred.³² Thus, the court held that Doe was not prevented from pursuing legal

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action when he reached the age of majority in the 1980s and affirmed the dismissal of the complaint.³³

The Supreme Court of Georgia granted a petition for certiorari to determine whether the court of appeals erred in affirming the superior court's ruling.³⁴ Applying a de novo standard of review, the court held that Doe sufficiently alleged the elements of fraud in his claims for fraudulent concealment and misrepresentation to toll the statute of limitations for the majority of his other claims.³⁵ The court determined that Doe's allegations sufficiently established the Church's alleged fraud and Doe's reasonable diligence in discovering the fraud.³⁶ Additionally, the court disagreed with the court of appeal's conclusion that because Doe knew he had been sexually abused by Edwards in the 1970s, he was not deterred from filing suit earlier.³⁷ The only claim the supreme court affirmed the dismissal of was Doe's respondeat superior claim against the Church. The court remanded the case back to the superior court for further proceedings.³⁸

III....