The case of two brothers who sued the Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake City and Judge Memorial High School claiming they had been molested by a former priest when they were schoolboys is back in court.
The Utah Supreme Court will hear oral arguments Wednesday in the case of Ralph Louis Colosimo, now 52, and Charles Matthew Colosimo, now 44, who sued in 2003, claiming they had been sexually abused by a former teacher and priest, James Rapp, at various times between 1970-75.
At issue is whether the brothers should have asked what the church and school knew about Rapp's behavior at the time.
The high court also will hear arguments as to whether the brothers should have filed a lawsuit earlier, before the statute of limitations ran out.
"They were boys," argues Larry Keller, lawyer for the Colosimos. "They didn't have any way of knowing these entities knew about Rapp."
Rapp pleaded no contest in 1999 to two counts of lewd molestation of a boy in Oklahoma and was sentenced to a 40-year prison term that he began serving in Helena, Okla. He was moved in 2002 to an undisclosed prison in Florida, according to Jo Ellyn Rackleff of the Florida Department of Corrections.
The Colosimos filed an $80 million lawsuit in Salt Lake City in 2003, claiming church and school officials knew of Rapp's pedophile tendencies, but were more concerned with protecting institutions than children. Named in the suit were the diocese, the school's board of financial trustees, the Archdiocese of San Francisco, and the religious order to which the priest belonged, the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales.
The Colosimos maintained Rapp began repeatedly abusing Ralph Colosimo in 1970 or 1971, when he attended Judge Memorial, and repeated similar abusive behavior with Charles Colosimo starting when he was 10 and a student at St. Ann's Catholic School.
A district court judge ruled the statute of limitations had run out for the Colosimos' lawsuit and that decision was upheld by the Utah Court of Appeals.
The attorney for the diocese and school trustees declined to be interviewed, but the legal brief for both entities says the only real question before the Supreme Court is whether there is any legal theory that would excuse the Colosimos' failure to file suit against third parties before the statute of limitations ended.
Church officials are not admitting any knowledge of Rapp's behavior, but for purposes of legal arguments state that the Colosimos knew they had been abused, knew Rapp and knew of his relationship with the church, the religious order, the archdiocese and the high school where he taught.
It was the Colosimos' responsibility to seek information at the time, or within the statutory limit of four years after they turned 18, to see if these institutions were in any way liable for Rapp, according to the legal brief filed by the diocese and school.
The brief maintains the Colosimos did not make any effort to investigate their claims that church or school officials knew about Rapp and hid the information.
"These plaintiffs had the means to uncover the relevant facts within the limitations period because all they had to do was ask someone with authority at the diocese and/or the trustees about whether the diocese and the trustees knew about Rapp's tendencies before the abuse occurred. Because the plaintiffs failed to take even that minimal step, there was no fraudulent concealment and their claims are time-barred," according to the legal brief for the diocese and school.
Information about Rapp's previous troubles with inappropriate behavior with young males, and the responses by church and school officials showed up in a Washington Post article printed in 2002, and Keller argues this is when the statute of limitations should begin.
He insists there is no way the Colosimos could have known they should have raised questions earlier because important facts about Rapp's history were concealed, which was a practice at the time employed by the Catholic Church worldwide.
"To impose on these young boys, who were being brutally raped and molested, a duty to have found out the church as a whole, as well as the diocese and other defendants, were in possession of facts and fraudulently concealing them is a wrong conclusion," Keller said.
But the diocese and school officials argue in their legal brief that the Colosimos' arguments about fraudulent concealment of information fail.
"We're not attacking the Catholic Church," Keller said. "We're simply suggesting there was a time in its history when the church dealt with molesting priests in a much different manner than it does now."
Keller said the Colosimos are not focused on money. "If they didn't get one red cent, if these defendants would say, 'We were wrong, we are sorry,' that would give a measure of the satisfaction my clients are looking for."
E-mail: lindat@desnews.com