Justice late, not denied: New York to allow old abuse suits

Hundreds, possibly thousands of people who say they were molested as children in New York state are expected to go to court this week to sue their alleged abusers and the institutions they say failed them, including the Catholic Church, the Boy Scouts, public schools and hospitals.

It's all because of a landmark state law passed this year that creates a one-year window allowing people to file civil lawsuits that had previously been barred by the state's statute of limitations, one of the nation's most restrictive, that had prevented many victims from seeking justice for decades-old abuse.

Many won't even wait a day.

Michael Schall, 64, who says his scoutmaster in the Buffalo suburbs molested him for two years beginning in 1968, will be among those filing lawsuits early Wednesday morning.

It's not about money, Schall said, it's about standing up for the "sweet, naive" kid he once was, who had nowhere to turn.

"This is my chance to say: this happened to me," said Schall, who now lives in Portland, Oregon.

"It's affected me in so many different ways in my life, in who I am. This seems freeing. It's like I'm bringing something to light that's been held in the darkness for so long."
The organisation has acknowledged that sex-abuse litigation poses a financial impact and said it's now "working with experts and exploring all options available so we can live up to our social and moral responsibility to fairly compensate victims who suffered abuse."
"And it doesn't change how difficult it can be to talk about child sexual abuse in public."
"This is very unusual," he said of the litigation window. He said New York's large population and its significant number of Catholics "make it pretty close to unprecedented."