By DAMIEN FISHER, InDepthNH.org
Whether or not a man who claims he was sexually abused as a child by a Roman Catholic priest is allowed to bring a lawsuit against the Diocese of Manchester is about to get decided by the state Supreme Court.
The Justices will have to decide if the statute of limitations for bringing a civil lawsuit in a child sex abuse complaint applies after the legislature removed the limits in 2020.
Attorney Mitchell Garabedian, who helped bring the sexual abuse scandal in the Boston Archdiocese to light in 2002, told InDepthNH.org there are competing legal issues at play.
“Much of the court’s decision will hinge on the facts of the case before it when applying the applicable law,” Garabedian said.
Garabedian is not connected to the case, but agreed to comment on it as an analyst. He said there’s an argument to be made for both sides when the case goes to oral arguments on June 18.
The alleged victim claims in his lawsuit that he was raped in the 1970s when he was at a summer camp run by the Church. The alleged rapist, Fr. Karl Dowd, was the priest in charge of the diocesan Camp Fatima and Camp Bernadette for decades.
Prior to 2020, New Hampshire law would have required the victim to file a lawsuit when he turned 20, and after which point he would lose his right to sue the diocese. The alleged victim in this case turned 20 in 1986.
However, the legislature changed the law in 2020 to remove the statute of limitations for victims of child sexual abuse and the victim filed his lawsuit in 2023. The diocese disputed the victim’s legal right to sue, and last year Superior Court Judge Elizabeth Leonard agreed.
According to Leonard’s dismissal, the 2020 law change to remove the statute of limitations cannot be applied retroactively, as the New Hampshire Constitution prohibits retroactive enforcement.
“The prohibition against retrospective application of laws under Article 23 of the New Hampshire Constitution must be respected in this case because ‘[r]etrospective laws are highly injurious, oppressive, and unjust’ in every case,” Leonard wrote.
The legislature never specified in 2020 that the change to the statute of limitations could be applied retroactively, Garabedian said. That could leave Leonard’s ruling in place, he said. At the same time, the Supreme Court ruling in 1995’s Conrad v. Hazen gave victims more time to file lawsuits beyond the statute of limitations depending on when they personally learned relevant information.
In 2023, the Supreme Court ruled that Larissa Troy’s sexual abuse lawsuit against Bishop Guertin High School could go forward despite the statute of limitations running out for her in 2007. Troy filed the lawsuit in 2018 after she first learned that school officials knew her abuser, Brother Shawn McEnany, was already a convicted sex offender when he was hired at the Nashua high school. That lawsuit is still active and awaiting trial.
Dowd was promoted by the diocese in 1971 to be the camp director, despite a prior sexual assault complaint at St. Bernard Parish in Keene where Dowd was accused of abusing a 16-year-old boy.
Dowd’s leadership at Camp Fatima saw the summer camp become an abyss of child sex abuse, according to court records, with multiple priests and religious staffers allegedly raping the boys.
“Several other boys who attended Camp Fatima alleged that Dowd sexually abused them, including one man who alleged he was abused more than 100 times before 1975. The abuse was so pervasive at the Camp that one former camper stated, ‘it was nothing to see somebody take a little kid, go into a cabin, [and] close all the shutters,’” court records state.
The alleged victim claims he was first assaulted by Dowd when other staffers directed the boy to hide in a particular cabin. The camp staffers were playing a game known as “strip the campers,” in which the boys were chased and forcibly stripped if caught by the staff. The victim was told he could avoid being stripped by going into the cabin, according to court records.
The alleged victim went into the cabin alone, and saw it was furnished with a bed. Dowd soon entered, joined him on the bed, and allegedly began his assault.
“Dowd proceeded to sexually assault the plaintiff while telling him that ‘God loved him and wanted him there, and so did Dowd,’” according to court records.
Dowd was the camp director until 1990. Dowd’s notorious abuse wasn’t known to the public until after he died in 2002 when several former campers came forward. But the victim alleges the diocese knew that Dowd sexually assaulted children.
Several former campers filed a class action lawsuit against the diocese in 2002, months after Dowd died while on vacation in Florida. That lawsuit was later settled out of court.
Whatever the outcome before the Supreme Court, Garabedian said the alleged victim has already won moral victory by speaking out.
“The sexual abuse victim or survivor in this matter should be proud of coming forward and reporting the sexual abuse. In doing so the sexual abuse victim or survivor is raising public awareness and in turn making the world safer for children. And hopefully creating at least a small degree of healing,” Garabedian said.