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In a 5-2 opinion, the Maine Supreme Court has declared unconstitutional a 2021 state law that eliminated the statute of limitations for claims of sexual abuse of minors.

The ruling is a victory for the Roman Catholic Church of Portland which has been battling 13 lawsuits alleging abuse of minors decades ago. In its attempt to have the claims dismissed, the church successfully argued that the retroactive law violates the Maine Constitution.

The majority was unequivocal in its opinion.

“In sum, we have declared flatly, many times, with no articulated restriction, in varied types of cases, both common law and statutorily created, that a claim cannot be revived after its statute of limitations has expired,” the ruling written by Justice Catherine R. Connors states.

From at least 1954 until 1985, the general limitations period for most civil claims was six years. In 1985, the legislature enacted a separate six-year statute of limitations for claims based on sexual acts toward minors. That statutory period was extended to 12 years in 1991. The legislature then eliminated the limitations period altogether in 2000 for claims accruing after their effective date or those “not yet barred by the previous statute of limitations in force.” In 2021, however, lawmakers sought to revive these previously barred claims.

The court found that retroactive application “contravenes centuries of precedent and multiple provisions of the Maine Declaration of Rights as well as the Constitution’s provisions regarding separation of powers.”

According to the majority, while not all retroactive legislation is prohibited, retroactive legislation cannot impair vested rights. “Once a statute of limitations has expired for a claim, a right to be free of that claim has vested, and the claim cannot be revived,” the opinion states in finding the law unconstitutional as applied to expired claims.

In 2022, Robert E. Dupuis and 12 other plaintiffs filed lawsuits against the Roman Catholic Bishop of Portland seeking damages for sexual abuse allegedly perpetrated by the church’s clergy when the plaintiffs were minor children. Their claims were previously barred by the statute of limitations, and the bishop argued that the law that purports to revive the plaintiffs’ claims deprives the bishop of a constitutionally protected vested right.

The lower court denied the bishop’s motions but reported to the Supreme Court its 13 separate, nearly identical orders denying the motions. The high court decided that the question for it was whether the retroactive application of the removal of a statute of limitations after a plaintiff’s claim has been extinguished by a preexisting statute of limitations violates the Maine Constitution.

The court answered the same as it said it has in a long list of precedents. “Under the Maine Constitution, once the statute of limitations has expired for a cause of action, the claim cannot be retroactively revived. We have declared many times that a claim cannot be revived after the expiration of its statute of limitations.”

Furthermore, the court noted that the framers of the state Constitution did not deem legislation reviving claims that have expired to be a “law” within the power of the legislature to enact. Also, the court said, long before the adoption of the Maine Constitution, the common law condemned the concept of retroactive liability as well.

The court added that it was not persuaded by a minority of other jurisdictions that have allowed retroactive liability, although it acknowledged that evolved knowledge provides support for the elimination of any statute of limitations for torts involving sexual assaults. But the issue as the court saw it was not the elimination of a statute of limitations but rather the revival of a claim after the relevant existing statute of limitations has expired.

The majority expressed sympathy for the victims of abuse.

“The problems presented in a case like this one are heart-wrenching. We have enormous sympathy for victims of child sex abuse. But our oath is to support, obey, and defend the constitution. And we find the Constitution to dictate a clear answer to the question presented,” Justice Connors wrote.

Connors was joined in the opinion by Chief Justice Valerie Stanfill and Justices Andrew M. Mead, Andrew M. Horton, and Thomas Edward Humphrey.

Justice Wayne R. Douglas dissented, joined by Justice Rick E. Lawrence. “Our Constitution does not require the result the Court reaches today. Nor does our caselaw,” Douglas wrote.

Despite the court’s pronouncement that it has declared “many times” that a claim cannot be revived after the expiration of its statute of limitations, Douglas maintains this was a case of first impression in Maine.

Douglas did not agree that the running of a statute of limitations—”an arbitrary constraint on bringing suit”—creates a vested right. “To conclude otherwise, as the Court does here, effectively confers an absolute constitutional right upon an alleged tortfeasor to be relieved of having to answer to a lawsuit of this nature based on the age of the claim, regardless of the circumstances and contrary to other express constitutional guarantees. There is no such thing as a vested right to do wrong,” he wrote in dissent.

Last September, the Supreme Court of Maryland heard arguments about the constitutionality of a 2023 law that ended that state’s statute of limitations for child sexual abuse lawsuits following a report that exposed widespread wrongdoing within the Archdiocese of Baltimore.

In 2023, the Colorado Supreme Court struck down a law that gave sex abuse victims a three-year window to sue over abuses as far back as the 1960s. The court cited the state Constitution’s ban on legislation that retroactively applies to conduct prior to its passage.

Topics Claims Maine