NEW YORK—Scores of people in New York state who were sexually abused as children sued institutions, including the Roman Catholic Church, on Aug. 14, the first day a new law temporarily enabled them to file lawsuits over decades-old crimes.
By the close of business of Wednesday, 427 such lawsuits had been filed in courts across the state, according to a courts system spokesman. The vast majority of them were against the Church and its various dioceses in the state, as claimants accused priests of sexually abusing them as children and Church leaders of covering up the priests’ crimes, according to state court records.
