Colorado Supreme Court Denies Child Sex Abuse Lawsuits From Previous Decades

Inside the Byron White Court House, Denver, Colorado, home of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit (10th Circuit website)

Colorado’s Supreme Court on Tuesday denied child sexual abuse victims to file lawsuits from previous assaults that happened over a decade ago.

Colorado’s Child Sexual Abuse Accountability Act, passed in 2022, was meant to allow child victims to bypass the statute of limitations and seek reparations and accountability for their assailant and/or organizations that might have failed to catch and stop any abuse.

The law gave victims a three-year window to sue over abuses dating back to the 1960s.

The bill’s sponsors argued that particularly for children, such abuse often goes unreported at the time it happens.

In the court’s June 20 opinion, Justice Monica M. Márquez acknowledged the reasons why Colorado lawmakers enacted a three-year window to give survivors, whose civil claims for sexual abuse had long passed the legal deadline, a new opportunity to seek compensation for their injuries.

Eaglecrest High School in Aurora, Colorado. (Google Maps/Screenshot via The Epoch Times)

“We certainly understand the General Assembly’s desire to right the wrongs of past decades by permitting such victims to hold abusers and their enablers accountable,“ Márquez wrote in the opinion. ”But the General Assembly may accomplish its ends only through constitutional means.”

Angelica Saupe sued the school district, where she alleged her former high school coach and administrator, David James O'Neill, sexually assaulted her as a teenager in the early 2000s.

Saupe then appealed the case to the Supreme Court after a lower court ruled against her.

Saupe argued that the Supreme Court has previously held that retrospective laws may be constitutional if there are compelling “public health and safety concerns.” Protecting child victims, Saupe’s lawyers contended, fit within that category.

“The prohibition on retrospective legislation prevents the legislature from changing the rules after the fact because to do so would be unjust,” the Colorado Supreme Court explained. The Court agreed that constitutional prohibition would lose all meaning if retrospective laws could be based on public policy.

“Our constitutional form of government has inherent costs, namely, the limitations it places on the legislature’s ability to act in ways it deems to be in the public interest,” Márquez wrote. “But the people of this state determined that such constitutional limitations on the legislature’s power were necessary to prevent the legislature from encroaching on certain rights they considered crucial to a flourishing society.”

Stuart Suller, the school district’s attorney, argued in an April hearing that under the state Constitution, the General Assembly cannot retrospectively apply laws to past conduct.

The Supreme Court noted that the law attached “liability for conduct predating the Act and for which any previously available cause of action would be time-barred” and was therefore unconstitutional.

Saupe’s lawyer, Robert Friedman, argued that because school districts are lesser political entities than the state, they cannot claim they are protected against retrospective laws that the General Assembly enacts.

Democratic State Sen. Rhonda Fields, one of the bill’s sponsors, told 9News that she was disappointed by the ruling.

“So, really, the decision is like a slam of the door that was open,” Fields said. “So they’ve slammed the door, they have locked it from the inside out, and if there are any pending cases, it sends a very chilling message to survivors and those in the queue: don’t bother.”

The Archdiocese of Denver voiced support for the unanimous ruling by the Colorado Supreme Court that the retroactive portion of the Child Sexual Abuse Accountability Act (CSAAA) violates the constitutional prohibition on retrospective legislation.

The Archdiocese of Denver argued there were compelling reasons to prevent a flood of lawsuits based on decades-old claims of abuse. “The Archdiocese strongly believes litigation is never the means to true healing. It is adversarial and ultimately does more harm than good,” it said in a statement.

“The Archdiocese has always cared for the healing of sexual assault victims. Under the leadership of Archbishop Charles Chaput (1997-2011), the Archdiocese implemented the 2002 Dallas Charter, which included a strict ‘zero-tolerance policy’ for any substantiated allegation. And in 2006, Archbishop Chaput opened one of the nation’s first independent reparations programs to provide resources and healing to survivors of historical sexual abuse through a compassionate and non-adversarial independent Outreach Panel. Over the next few years, roughly 60 cases were settled, with the Church providing nearly $10 million in compensation to the survivors.

“In February 2019, the three Colorado dioceses announced a voluntary joint agreement with the Colorado Attorney General for a Special Master to conduct an independent review of the history of sexual abuse of minors by diocesan priests. The three Colorado dioceses also created and funded an Independent Reconciliation and Reparations Program (IRRP). The Archdiocese resolved over 55 claims and paid over $6 million in reparations during the 2019-2020 program,” it added.

“The Archdiocese remains committed to the continued healing of survivors of child sexual assault.”

Republican Rep. Matt Soper disagrees.

“This does send a clear message that you can abuse kids, cover up the evidence, and, as an institution, not be held liable. And that’s not right.”

He sponsored the three-year window that would have allowed civil sex abuse lawsuits to be filed through 2024.