Judge: Wrongful death lawsuit can move forward in case alleging abuse by priest

A wrongful-death lawsuit alleging that a boy took his life decades ago because of repeated sexual abuse by a Kansas City priest can proceed, a judge ruled this week.

The statute of limitations for wrongful death is three years in Missouri.

But in his order, Jackson County Circuit Court Judge Michael Manners held as valid the argument of the boys’ parents that the statute of limitations should be suspended because of the defendants’ cover-up, fraud and concealment of the priest’s alleged abuse of their son and other children.

The judge dismissed the parents’ other claims that the priest and the diocese deprived their son of “a material chance of surviving.”

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/06/29/3683190/ruling-wrongful-death-lawsuit.html#storylink=cpy