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Supreme Court accepts case against Wisconsin dioceses

By: dmc-admin//October 29, 2007//

Supreme Court accepts case against Wisconsin dioceses

By: dmc-admin//October 29, 2007//

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On Oct. 25, the Wisconsin Supreme Court accepted the case of five men who claimed the Roman Catholic dioceses in Madison and Milwaukee covered up a Kentucky teacher’s history of sexual abuse of them as children.

In October 2005, Kenneth Hornback, Dennis L. Bolton, Ronald W. Kuhl, David W. Schaeffer and Glenn M. Bonn sued the Milwaukee Archdiocese and Madison Diocese, claiming that from 1968 to 1973, Gary T. Kazmarek, a teacher and coach in the Louisville Archdiocese, sexually ab-used them and that the Milwaukee Archdiocese and Madison Diocese “knew or should have known of Kazmarek’s propensity for sexually abusing children.”

In the lawsuit, the plaintiffs claim that from 1964 to 1966, Kazmarek taught at a school in the Milwaukee Archdiocese where he allegedly sexually abused “more than two dozen children.” He then taught in the Madison Diocese where he allegedly sexually abused “up to ten children.”

Last November, the Wisconsin Court of Appeals upheld a circuit court decision that a statute of limitations prevented the five men from suing over the sexual abuse allegations against Kazmarek, who in 2003, pleaded guilty in Kentucky to sexually abusing the men and was sentenced to 13 years in prison.

The Supreme Court will examine the statute of limitations as it relates to civil cases involving the sexual assault of a child “and whether the First Amendment bars civil actions against a religious organization for damages resulting from such assaults.”

In July 2007, the Supreme Court unanimously reversed in part earlier circuit court and court of appeals decisions in John Doe v. Archdiocese of Milwaukee, which denied victims of sexual molestation by Roman Catholic priests the ability to sue for fraud based on statute of limitations. The justices will allow the fraud case to move forward.

The Court also upheld earlier rulings which barred victims from suing the church for negligence in its supervision of priests.

Attorneys James S. Smith and Wendy G. Gunderson of Smith, Gunderson & Rowen, S.C., in Brookfield are representing the five plaintiffs in this case and also represented plaintiffs in the John Doe case. Defense attorneys John A. Rothstein and David P. Muth of Quarles & Brady, LLP, in Milwau-kee are again serving as counsel for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee.

None of the attorneys could be immediately reached for comment Thursday morning.

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