When I am not a moderatepachy, I am a lawyer. The majority of my practice is as defense counsel in civil litigation. Sometimes, the job is rewarding, especially when you win in lawsuits initiated by lawyers who advertise like this (disclosure: I have never opposed them, but I hope to one day, and win). Other times, the job causes headaches, because my job is to to be a skeptic.
Recently, I went to the Iowa State Senate to talk about this proposed legislation. SF107 extends the Statute of Limitations for filing civil (and criminal) actions relating to sex abuse of a child. You can read an 80% accurate depiction of the Senate Subcommitte hearing here. Believe this moderatepachy, the testimony from the survivors was passionate. Petrovsky omitted that another survivor of abuse, John, gave compelling testimony.
What Petroski also missed is that the bill would allow suits within 25 years of the “discovery” of abuse by the alleged victim. In other words, the 60+ year old senior partner at my firm could “discover” tomorrow that he had been abused as a child, and he would have 25 years to file suit… imagine a lawsuit filed in 2039 for something that allegedly occurred during the LBJ administration. (No doubt Hillary Clinton's granddaughter and Ted Cruz's son will yell at one another about the lawsuit one day on Fox News' “Hannity & Son”).
The sensitive and difficult nature about these types of suits is touched on here by the Iowa Catholic Conference; the Catholic church has a dog in this fight for obvious reasons I need not explain.
Besides those, the reality is that most abusers do not have any money; but insurance policyholders do. The gimmick, then, is that one sues the abuser… but also wherever the abuser taught, worked, and preached, under a theory that supervisors are liable for whatever their subordinates do. Imagine the changes that occur in 4 years (the Statute of Limitations right now) in a business, school, or church. Records, witnesses, memories… gone. Just like plaintiffs, defendants have a right to a fair trial. How can one defend against an alleged wrong that occured 30, 50, or 70 years ago?
After the victims testified, it was clear that Senator Petersen (D, SD-18) urgently wanted to move the bill forward. The defense bar hopes that cooler heads might prevail in the House. Last year, similar legislation died in a Senate subcommittee. To oppose this bill is tricky; to be seen as “against” abuse victims is to be seen as tacitly “supporting” abusers.
What is interesting is that the lobbyist declarations have not been very active; certainly there are other things that keep our legislators busy, and in same cases, motivate our legislative leaders to cave to Farm Bureau pull members of their own caucus off of committees to get things done.
I urge any other Bleeding Heartland readers, if you hear about legislation you might not like, figure out a way to find it, found out who supports it, and share your view with your legislators.
This moderatepachy may have further updates and hopes to give readers more insights in the legislative sausage being made. Moderatepachy would also like to salute the work of desmoinesdem, for creating an incredible local resource on Iowa politics. It smarts that the analysis and writing in this blog and another (D)'s usually has more context, statewide scope, and humour (say it with a British or French accent to justify my misspelling), than the flagship for my party.
2 Comments
thanks for this guest post
I’ll bump it to the front page later today.
Last year, a similar bill (Senate File 2109) passed the Iowa Senate by 49 votes to 0 but later died in the Iowa House Judiciary Committee. Are you aware of any significant changes to the bill since last year?
My lawyer father used to say, “Tough cases make bad law.” I wonder whether your hypothetical case of the 60-something person who remembers childhood abuse (and now has 25 years to sue) is an example of that. Surely most of the people who suffer under the current statute of limitations and would benefit from the proposed bill are much younger and were abused in the much more recent past.
I take your point about the “gimmick” of suing the abuser’s employer. I would counter that fear of lawsuits and huge payouts seems to be the main factor pushing some employers to take this crime seriously, at long last. So on balance I don’t think it’s a bad thing for businesses, schools, or churches to be aware that they could be liable for crimes committed against children on their watch.
desmoinesdem Fri 27 Feb 10:23 AM
Thank you
for all of your hard work. Your father is right on the money. To this moderatepachy’s knowledge, the amendment(s), if any, this year have stripped out a 3-year retroactivity provision that would have allowed people to sue for abuse three years prior (or, would mean that people who discovered tomorrow that they were abused in 1988 would be within the window to file suit). That was stripped out.
You have a point, on balance, but the fear for many is that 25 years later, who knows what happened? If 25 years is acceptable, there is certainly a case to be made for doing away with any Statute of Limitations, because why is a victim who was abused 27 years ago any less entitled than one who was abused 10 years ago…though I usually despise those types of “slipper slope” arguments.
This (R) hopes to update readers as we go, if nothing else because this blog has been such a great resource.
moderatepachy Mon 2 Mar 10:20 PM