Archdiocese, churches move to strike child sexual abuse, negligence claims

Seven adults are suing after a priest allegedly molested them when they were children

BY Bernise Carolino 24 Jun 2022

Seven adults have brought a lawsuit alleging that the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Los Angeles and other entities authorized, ratified, and were therefore liable for a priest’s molestation of them when they were children.

The defendants in Ratcliff et al. v. The Roman Catholic Archbishop of LA, a corporation sole et al. also included the Archdiocese of Los Angeles Education and Welfare Corporation and three individual Catholic churches – St. Christopher in West Covina, St. Mary in Palmdale, and St. Lawrence Martyr in Redondo Beach.

The seven plaintiffs sued the defendants as those who employed and supervised Father Christopher Cunningham and the other employees and agents of the churches where he worked. They alleged that the priest had a lengthy history of abusing minors within the church, including molesting the plaintiffs as children. They claimed that the defendants were vicariously liable for the child sexual abuse because they authorized and ratified it, as well as liable for negligence.

In relation to their negligence claim, the plaintiffs asserted that the defendants, by law, had a special relationship with the children entrusted to their care and had a duty to protect them from harm. The defendants allegedly breached this duty by doing the following:

by failing to sufficiently supervise or by negligently retaining the priest, whom they permitted to access the plaintiffs;
by failing to investigate, confirm, or deny certain suspicions about the priest;
by failing to tell or by concealing from the plaintiffs, from their parents or guardians, and from law enforcement officials that the priest was or may have been sexually abusing minors;
by holding out the priest as trustworthy and as being in good standing;
by failing to educate, train, and warn the plaintiffs on prevention, detection, and reporting of child abuse;
by failing to educate parish staff members, some of whom witnessed the priest’s suspicious conduct, about their reporting duties under section 11165.7 of the Penal Code.

The defendants attempted to strike the complaint pursuant to the anti-strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPP) law under California’s Code of Civil Procedure. They argued that some of the alleged negligent acts or acts ratifying molestation constituted speech or litigation conduct protected by the anti-SLAPP legislation.

The trial court found that the complaint did not allege conduct safeguarded by the anti-SLAPP statute. The California Court of Appeal for the Second District affirmed the order denying the defendant’s anti-SLAPP motion.

First, regarding the plaintiffs’ cause of action for child sexual abuse/sexual battery, the defendants appeared to describe this claim as entirely based on their litigation activity in separate proceedings involving another plaintiff and in the related criminal investigation.

The appellate court found that the defendants were mischaracterizing the complaint and were cherry-picking allegations relating to litigation conduct. Rather, the allegations of litigation conduct were incidental, were intended to provide context, and were not meant to comprise all the plaintiffs’ allegations of ratification, the appellate court held.

Second, the appellate court found that the defendants were also selectively reading the plaintiff’s cause of action for negligence to categorize it as a “failure to inform.” The appellate court, disagreeing with this reading of the plaintiffs’ complaint, found that the plaintiffs’ negligence claim included numerous allegations of negligent conduct that were not related to speech.

As the plaintiffs explained, the basis of their cause of action for negligence was not the defendants’ failure to inform, but was instead the defendants’ failure to supervise their agent and to safeguard them from foreseeable sexual abuse, the appellate court noted.