PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — The Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence in a legal filing has challenged a lawsuit filed after Rhode Island changed state law to give sex abuse victims more time to sue their abusers or the institutions they worked for.
The challenge comes in the case of a 53-year-old man who sued the diocese in September, saying he was abused as a child in the 1970s and 1980s by a now-deceased North Providence priest, The Providence Journal reported Friday.
The plaintiff was the first to file a priest abuse lawsuit after the state extended the statute of limitations to file civil claims for child sexual abuse.
Democratic Gov. Gina Raimondo signed the law in the summer.
The diocese is asking the Superior Court to dismiss the case.
The church argues that the state can’t extend the deadline to file lawsuits over child sex abuse if the deadline had already run out under the old law.
“The Rhode Island Supreme Court has held unequivocally that retroactive legislative changes to statutes of limitations that revive already time-barred claims are unconstitutional,” the diocese’s lawyers said.
Timothy Conlon, an attorney for the man suing the diocese, said the motion to dismiss is not unexpected.
The diocese and its lawyers did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.
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