Appeal aimed at changing law

Several plaintiffs have filed an appeal from the dismissals of their cases against the Archdiocese of Milwaukee.

At issue are two major questions for people abused by clergy as minors: How soon after the abuse must victims sue? And does the Constitution's separation of church and state prevent such suits?

Not in this report by Tom Heinen in yesterday's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel but in the Associate Press report is more detailed background.

The appeal, filed with the 1st District Court of Appeals, seeks to overturn decisions by Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Michael Guolee this year involving three alleged cases of sexual abuse by the late Rev. Siegfried Widera between 1973 and 1976 and one by the Rev. Franklyn Becker in 1982.

Guolee ruled the statute of limitations had run out in the Widera cases, involving two claims of fraud and one of negligence. The Becker case was consolidated with those cases and dismissed as well.

Heinen's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel report goes on to say,

Three plaintiffs said they were abused by Father Siegfried Widera at St. Andrew Parish in Delavan in the 1970s after he had been convicted in 1973 of "sexual perversion" involving a boy in Ozaukee County. The lawsuit alleges civil fraud, saying archdiocesan officials did not tell the parish about Widera's conviction and, after Widera molested boys again, worked to keep that knowledge from police and parishioners before allowing the priest to transfer to California.

The plaintiffs fraud allegation is important because the statute of limitations does not begin to run until the fraud is, or ought to be, discovered.

That claim was strengthened when the archdiocese had to provide old correspondence and other documents to California courts after the California Supreme Court ruled that people who said they were sexually abused by Widera in California could sue the Archdiocese of Milwaukee in courts there.

Allusions to Fr. Widera's problems in correspondence from the Archdiocese of Milwaukee to the receiving diocese in California were held to be too vague to constitute sufficient warning to Church authorities in California for the court to rule they relieved Milwaukee of liability. Instead, a jury would have to decide this issue.