A woman claims the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ was negligent in its response after she reported her stepfather was sexually abusing her. A Riverside judge has denied the church’s request to dismiss the case.
A Jane Doe claimed that her stepfather, Robert Fitzgerald, sexually abused her for eight years, starting in 1987, when she was 6 years old, and with the knowledge of her mother, Kathleen Bingley. She reported his sexual abuse to LDS Bishop Tyler Smithson in 1994, her complaint says.
Bingley denied her daughter’s allegations in her answer to the complaint. Fitzgerald also generally denied Doe’s allegations, and denied having caused any suffering. The church denied that any of their conduct caused Doe any damage.
“Plaintiff’s evidence shows that the Church’s failure to act after engagement increased the risk of sexual abuse by sending Plaintiff home with Fitzgerald, causing Fitzgerald to increase the frequency of the abuse, and preventing Plaintiff from reporting Fitzgerald to the police for several months.”
Judge Chad Firetag
The family attended LDS church services in Lake Elsinore.
Instead of reporting the misconduct, Smithson had a private talk with Bingley and Fitzgerald, and then told Doe to hug and forgive her stepfather, Doe claimed.
She then told Smithson’s wife that she was suicidal due to the abuse, and she said that Smithson, instead of contacting law enforcement, told her that suicide is a sin, and to focus on God’s love, she claimed in her complaint. She also told another bishop, Rocky Snider, sometime between 1995 and 1997, her complaint claims. Schneider intimidated her out of reporting their misconduct to the police, and told her she would go to prison if she talked, she claimed.
Eventually in 1997, Doe told her high school basketball coach, who told the police.
The police arrested Fitzgerald the same day. He pleaded guilty to all charges, and was sentenced on 55 counts, Doe’s complaint said.
She brought a cause of negligence, and a second of negligence-assumed duty, against the church. She also brought a cause of sexual abuse of a minor against her mother and Fitzgerald, and a fourth cause of intentional infliction of emotional distress against Fitzgerald.
The church asked Riverside Superior Judge Chad Firetag to dismiss the negligence case. He denied their request Dec. 13.
The church argued that Doe failed to prove they had any duty to report the abuse.
Doe argued the church worsened her situation by sending her home with Fitzgerald and “silencing her.”
She also argued that the church told her during Sunday school sessions that she should talk to a bishop if she was being touched inappropriately, and she alleges the church had a policy of protecting children from predators.
To keep her negligence argument, Doe must prove that the church took some kind of an action, and performed it negligently, Firetag wrote. The church argued they were not negligent, because they did not try to protect Doe from the abuse, Firetag wrote. To be legally negligent, the church had to have had a duty to protect Doe, and had to have been negligent while carrying out that duty.
Firetag found a triable issue of fact as to whether the church owed a duty to protect Doe, because Smithson told her he would “make sure” that the abuse would stop, and later talked with her family.
The church also argued that, even if they had a duty, their negligence was not responsible for Doe’s abuse, since they stemmed from her stepfather.
Firetag instead accepted Doe’s argument.
“Plaintiff’s evidence shows that the Church’s failure to act after engagement increased the risk of sexual abuse by sending Plaintiff home with Fitzgerald, causing Fitzgerald to increase the frequency of the abuse, and preventing Plaintiff from reporting Fitzgerald to the police for several months,” Firetag wrote.
Although Firetag kept the church as a defendant, he released the San Diego Stake from the proceedings. He agreed with the stake that no members of the case, including the bishops and Doe’s family, were ever in that stake. The motion to remove them was unopposed.
Case information
Case No. CVRI2100419.
Read Doe’s complaint here.
Read Bingley’s response here.
Read Fitzgerald’s response here.
Read the church’s response here.
Read Firetag’s tentative ruling, which he adopted as the official ruling after a hearing, here.
