The Michigan Supreme Court is set to review a case that could set a precedent for victims of childhood sexual abuse.
Attorney Ven Johnson, with Ven Johnson Law, says his client, Brian McLain, was sexually abused by a Roman Catholic priest in 1999 when he was a minor attending W.J. Maxey Boys Training School in Whitmore Lake.
Father Richard Lobert, the priest in question, has connections to the Archdiocese of Baltimore, the Archdiocese of Lansing, and Father Gabriel Richard Catholic High School in Ann Arbor.
Local 4 obtained a release dated January 2021, stating that Father Lobert had been removed from all of his priestly duties following an investigation.
The state Supreme Court will have to decide if the 2018 change to the statute of limitations applies in this case.
The new law, extending the amount of time childhood sex assault victims have to file a civil case, changed during the Larry Nassar investigation as his victims came to realize that three years past the point of the assault, they were no longer able to bring a civil case. Johnson called the three-year statute of limitation was unfair.
“Why,” said Johnson. “If we’re sending someone to prison, and we’re okay with that idea, it doesn’t bring back the person that they killed, doesn’t make the injuries go away, but we don’t have a problem with that concept. But yet, in civil cases, we’ve created these laws that are much more difficult for someone to overcome in the civil area.”
Johnson says Michigan lawmakers ultimately extended the statute of limitations, taking into account the data that shows nearly 83% of child sex assault victims don’t come forward at the time of the abuse.
The change Michigan lawmakers made in 2018 allows for adult victims of sexual abuse to come forward up until the age of 28 or within three years of discovering the trauma.
In McLain’s case, attorneys say, he really only began to process and share what happened to him when he started meeting with a therapist in 2020.
Johnson and his team argue he is legally within his rights to bring forth a civil lawsuit against the Archdiocese of Lansing, Archdiocese of Baltimore, and Father Richard Lobert himself.