A federal judge dismissed a Las Vegas woman's lawsuit alleging that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints allowed a priest to sexually abuse her as a child, ruling that her negligence claims failed to establish a legally recognized duty on the church's part. U.S. District Judge Jennifer Dorsey gave the plaintiff, identified in court papers as Jane Doe C.H., 10 days to amend her complaint.
Dorsey's order, issued Wednesday, found that Doe's negligence theories based on the church's alleged duty to protect her did not hold up because she had not shown that the law recognizes such a duty under the circumstances she described, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. The order stated that no court has recognized a general duty for churches to protect members from crimes committed by fellow congregants simply because they belong to the same church.
The lawsuit, filed in January, alleged that a priest ordained within the church raped Doe in the 1990s when she was between 10 and 15 years old, and that the priest was responsible for counseling and teaching congregation members. The claims included negligent supervision and breach of a mandatory duty to report suspected child abuse, according to an earlier report from the same outlet.
What the Complaint Alleged Happened in 1999
According to the filing, Doe reported the abuse to the church's bishop in 1999, and he told her not to call the police. The bishop assured her that the church would “handle” the situation, attorney Margot Cutter wrote in the complaint. Instead, the complaint alleged, the church told the defendant about Doe's disclosure and took no meaningful action to prevent further harm.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints had filed a motion to dismiss the case. Dorsey's order described Doe's negligence claims as rife with deficiencies, the report notes, while still leaving room for the case to continue in a narrower form.
A Path Forward, But a Narrow One
Dorsey indicated that an amended claim could rely on a different legal theory: that the church voluntarily assumed responsibility to protect Doe when the bishop told her he would handle the situation. That distinction separates an alleged blanket duty owed to any church member from a duty that can arise once an institution takes it upon itself to act. The order also noted that the alleged abuse did not occur under special circumstances, such as a church-sponsored youth group or camp, where parents had relinquished control of a child to the church.
Cutter had said the woman was a church member and that the priest served at the East Stake 1st Ward on East Wyoming Avenue near Interstate 11, per the same account. Cutter could not be reached for comment about the ruling, the Review-Journal reported.
Nevada's Legal Framework for Abuse Claims
Nevada law lays out a specific category for civil actions tied to child sexual abuse. Under Chapter 11 of the Nevada Revised Statutes, the state's framework for the limitation of actions specifically addresses damages for injury arising from the sexual abuse or sexual exploitation of a minor. Nevada law generally requires civil actions to be filed within periods set out in that chapter after a claim accrues, unless another statute says otherwise.
It remains unclear whether Doe will file an amended complaint within the 10-day window Dorsey granted. For now, the dismissal leaves the underlying allegations against the Las Vegas church unresolved, with the door only narrowly open for the case to move forward on the voluntary-assumption-of-duty theory the judge outlined.
