Kin of dead sex abuse victim sue under new California law

Lawyer Jeff Anderson holds up a photograph of former priest Stephen Kiesle at a information convention in Oakland, Calif., Wednesday, Aug. 18, 2010. The household of the late Jim Bartko, who stated he was molested as a toddler by Kiesle, has filed a lawsuit towards the Roman Catholic church below a brand new California regulation that enables members of the family of intercourse abuse victims to deliver lawsuits after their deaths. The household of Bartko filed the swimsuit in January 2022 in Alameda County Superior Courtroom towards the Diocese of Oakland.

• 
• 

LOS ANGELES (AP) — After a long time of coping with the boyhood trauma of being molested by a priest, Jim Bartko sued the Roman Catholic church two years in the past below.

However the lawsuit was dismissed when he died 4 days after talking publicly about it.

A brand new regulation has now revived his case, permitting his property to file for damages he may have looked for his struggling if he have been nonetheless alive.

Attorneys for Bartko’s kids filed the lawsuit final week in Alameda County Superior Courtroom towards the Oakland Diocese for allegedly failing to stop abuse by the previous Rev. Stephen Kiesle that occurred between 1972 and 1975 at St. Joseph’s Parish in Pinole, 18 miles (29 kilometers) northeast of San Francisco.

“They used to name him ‘the pied piper’ as a result of in all places he went, the youngsters adopted him round,” legal professional Rick Simons stated Tuesday of Kiesle. “He as soon as stated, ‘There wasn’t a single one I didn’t molest.’”

A spokeswoman for the Diocese of Oakland stated it will be inappropriate to remark at this level, however famous that Kiesle had been faraway from the priesthood.

Kiesle, 74, a convicted youngster molester, gained worldwide consideration lengthy after he left the priesthood in 1987. The Related Press reported in 2010 that Pope Benedict XVI — when he was then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger — resisted pleas from the diocese to defrock Kiesle.

Bartko, a longtime College of Oregon athletic division administrator, stated Kiesle had molested him and his finest buddy throughout sleepovers on the church rectory when he was a boy.

He stored the key for greater than 4 a long time, encumbered by sleeplessness and nervousness.

Due to extreme ingesting, Bartko’s marriage collapsed and he misplaced his job as athletic director at California State College, Fresno, Simons stated.

In rehab, he lastly instructed his story to a therapist and later wrote a e book about his expertise known as “ Boy within the Mirror.”

An emotional Bartko spoke at a information convention to announce the lawsuit in March 2020, joined at one level by the childhood buddy who had been abused alongside him.

That lawsuit was filed throughout a three-year window permitting intercourse abuse instances to be introduced lengthy after the deadline to deliver such claims had expired.

4 days later, Bartko, 54, collapsed whereas after understanding in Oregon, and died of a hemorrhage because of cirrhosis.

Kiesle was convicted of lewd conduct in 1978 for tying up and molesting two boys and sentenced to a few years probation. He was sentenced to 6 years in jail in 2004 for molesting a lady.

In 1981, Kiesle utilized to depart the priesthood with the help of diocese officers.

However the case languished on the Vatican. A 1985 letter in Latin obtained by AP bearing Ratzinger’s signature instructed Bishop John Cummins that eradicating Kiesle was of “grave significance” and a choice required “very cautious consideration, which necessitates an extended time frame.”

Church officers in California wrote a minimum of thrice to Ratzinger to test in and Cummins mentioned it throughout a Vatican go to, in accordance with correspondence. A Vatican official at one level stated the file might have been misplaced and steered resubmitting supplies.

Kiesle was lastly defrocked in 1987.

Bartko’s grownup son and daughter have a pending wrongful loss of life declare towards the church for their very own losses. They stated their father’s ingesting, which started when Kiesle gave him communion wine earlier than molesting him, led to self-medication and alcoholism that brought about his liver illness.

However the brand new regulation permits them to hold ahead their father’s claims for the emotional and psychological toll the abuse took on his life.

Beforehand, survivors of plaintiffs who died in California may search damages for financial losses akin to wages or medical payments, however not for his or her family members’ so-called ache and struggling or disfigurement.

California was one in every of few states to not permit these kind of damages after loss of life.

Senate Invoice 447 was signed into regulation final 12 months by Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom to permit that change to happen by the top of 2025.

Supporters, led by Client Attorneys of California, stated the earlier regulation created “a perverse incentive for defendants to delay instances and harass sick or injured plaintiffs within the hopes that the plaintiff will die earlier than trial, permitting the wrongdoer to keep away from paying any damages for the human struggling they've brought about.”

Opponents, led primarily by medical doctors and well being care teams, warned of the “collateral injury such a change would deliver to all stakeholders of our civil justice system.”

Lawyer Daniel Hurwitz, who just isn't concerned within the case, stated a subset of instances could have the potential to win extra damages and attorneys must issue that in when assessing the worth of the case.

“The damages image can change dramatically if the plaintiff have been to cross away,“ Hurwitz stated. “Actually any plaintiff decedent with a prolonged ache and struggling interval — that property goes to have a doubtlessly bigger restoration.”

In the course of the information convention earlier than his loss of life, Bartko stated he had refused to talk with police about Kiesle when he was 12, saying he let down different children who had reported abuse on the time.

He vowed to proceed to talk out after which learn a passage from his e book that appeared becoming given the change in regulation that continues to present him a voice in court docket.

“We lastly share what our betrayers hoped we’d all the time take to our graves as a result of our silence permits them to proceed to prey on these too afraid to talk up,” he stated.

___

This story has been corrected to replicate legal professional’s quote that some plaintiffs may have “doubtlessly bigger” recoveries, not “considerably bigger.”