By Bob Christie | Capitol Media Services
Key Points:
- Appeals court rules against Mormon church in child sexual abuse case
- Lower court has tossed lawsuit
- Church leaders say they will appeal, citing confession confidentiality
An appeals court has revived a lawsuit accusing The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and two of its bishops of failing to tell authorities that a Bisbee man was sexually abusing his young children.
The lawsuit filed by two daughters and a son who were victims of Paul Adams had been dismissed by a judge in Cochise County in 2023. The judge ruled there was no evidence church officials knew of the abuse of the children identified in court as Jane Doe 1 and 2 and John Doe outside of the confidential communications they had with Adams.
Cochise County Superior Court Judge Timothy Dickerson noted that Arizona laws that require such incidents to be reported are overridden when the only source of that information is divulged to them in ‘confession’ or similar conversations.
