Court: Priest Abuse Victims Can Seek Punitive Damages

Oakland, California --

A California appeals court has ruled that the Roman Catholic Bishop of Oakland must pay $875,000 in punitive damages to an Arizona man who said he was molested as a boy by a priest.

The Second District Court of Appeal said a trial judge didn't err in allowing Bob Thatcher to seek punitive as well as compensatory damages in his lawsuit against the church.

Thatcher was an altar boy at St. Ignatius Church in Antioch during the early 1980s when he said that the Rev. Robert Ponciroli sexually abused him and his younger brother, Tom.

Church lawyers argued that the punitive award an Alameda County Superior Court jury handed Thatcher on April 13 violated the state and federal constitutions' prohibitions against criminalizing past conduct.

Thatcher brought his lawsuit after the state temporarily lifted the statute of limitations for filing civil claims alleging past abuse.

Read the article at NBC11.com Dated May 1, 2005

Search the web for this article