Washington Sex Abuse Case

I overlooked this case over the week of Thanksgiving, but it was brought to my attention at the last local chapter meeting of the JRCLS. The Church was held liable for the sexual abuse of one of its members and the jury awarded the victims $4.2 million. The victims, two sisters, were molested by their stepfather and allege that an LDS bishop did not report it to the authorities until a couple years after he first learned of the abuse. Most notable in this case was the court's decision to treat the bishop as a social worker. In Washington, ecclesiastical leaders do not have a duty to report abuse but social service counselors do. The trial court allowed the jury to consider the bishop, and engineer at Boeing, to have acted as a social worker. This is one of the multiple points of error upon which the Church intends to appeal.

The story was carried by CNN, the Deseret News, the Seattle Post Intelliger, and the Washington Times.