South Dakota High Court Says Clergy Abuse Case Barred By Statute of Limitations

In Iron Wing v. Catholic Diocese of Sioux Falls, (SD Sup. Ct., Nov. 30, 2011), the South Dakota Supreme Court held that a lawsuit filed in 2008 by a victim of clergy sexual abuse committed over 40 years earlier is barred by the statute of limitations.  Plaintiff claimed he was sexually abused by a nun and a priest at a boarding school he attended. SDCL 26-10-25 requires the suit to be brought "within three years of the act alleged to have caused the injury or condition, or three years of the time the victim discovered or reasonably should have discovered that the injury or condition was caused by the act, whichever period expires later." The court said:

“Inquiry notice is determined by an objective standard.” ...  Although Iron Wing perhaps subjectively could not “connect the full extent of his injuries to the sexual abuse, he was aware of enough facts to put him on inquiry notice.”... He knew he had been abused by two members of a religious order beginning when he was age ten and resuming at age thirteen, because of this abuse he was angry and harbored hatred against the church and its priests and nuns from the time he was in the eleventh grade, he left the school because of the abuse, and he never forgot the abuse. These circumstances were sufficient to “‘prompt[] a reasonably prudent person to seek out information regarding his injury or condition and its cause.’”

AP reports on the decision.