A dozen alleged abuse victims suffered a defeat at a Georgia appeals court this week when their lawsuit against the Archdiocese of Atlanta was dismissed on the grounds that the alleged abuse did not fall under an extended statute of limitations.
The case turned on whether or not the archdiocese had covered up the alleged clergy sexual abuse, which if true could have “tolled” the time limit for filing abuse claims.
“Tolling” occurs when a statute of limitations is extended beyond a normal window, allowing alleged victims to file abuse claims years after they normally would have been barred from doing so.
In the Atlanta case, a dozen alleged victims had filed numerous suits against the Archdiocese of Atlanta and numerous churches, claiming that Fathers John Edwards and Jorge Cristancho had abused them over multiple decades from the 1960s to the early 2000s.
A lower court had dismissed the cases. The Georgia Court of Appeals on March 9 upheld the dismissal, arguing that the statute of limitations for the filings had expired and that the archdiocese had not committed any malfeasance that could have extended the filing window.
The plaintiffs “failed to point to any evidence that the [the archdioceseʼs] actions concealed the Plaintiffs’ claims and prevented or hindered them from filing their lawsuits,” the ruling held.
The alleged victims failed to prove that they “ever requested information from the [archdiocese] about their knowledge and involvement in the abuse, or that the [archdiocese] refused” to provide it.
The three-judge panel acknowledged that it was “certainly mindful of the grievous circumstances involving heinous conduct which led to the filing of these cases.”
Edwards and Cristancho are both listed by the archdiocese as “credibly accused” of sexual abuse. Edwards died in 1997; Cristancho was laicized in 2003.
Statutes of limitations have been a key component of disputes in the U.S. Church for years, with lawmakers in recent years advocating and often passing bills retroactively extending the window for filing abuse claims.
In 2023 Maryland passed the state Child Victims Act, which abolished a 20-year statute of limitations for civil child abuse suits. The Maryland Supreme Court ruled in 2025 that the law did not violate the state constitution.
Numerous states such as New York, North Carolina, New Jersey, Colorado and others have enacted similar laws allowing for abuse victims to seek restitution for alleged incidents that occurred in decades past.
Such legal arrangements are not limited to the United States. In January the Spanish Bishops’ Conference and the national government agreed to a compensation plan for abuse victims that will allow victims to file for restitution even if the alleged abuse falls outside of the standard statute of limitations.
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