Montana Supreme Court Overturns $35 Million Verdict Against Jehovah’s Witnesses in Child Abuse Case

The Montana Supreme Court has unanimously overturned the largest civil verdict against Jehovah’s Witnesses in U.S. history. The case drew wide attention on the duties of religious leaders to report suspected child sexual abuse. The ruling, issued Wednesday, erased a $35 million jury verdict to Alexis “Lexi” Nunez.

Nunez was abused by a member of the Thompson Falls, Montana, congregation. According to the reporting, elders at the local Kingdom Hall knew of separate allegations against the man but did not report them to law enforcement. They relied on legal advice from the organization’s headquarters that clergy in Montana are not required to report allegations that religious organizations deem “confidential.” The handling of those allegations raises questions about protecting the vulnerable (Psalm 82:3).

The case was featured in one installment of a four-part 2019 Hearst Television National Investigative Unit series, “Silent No More.” That series reported new allegations of child sexual abuse and decades-long cover-ups within the organization nationwide. NIU was granted rare access to bring cameras into the state supreme court for oral arguments in September 2019.

The 18-page opinion upholds a state law providing that religious leaders are not required to tell authorities about confidential child abuse allegations. The justices wrote that Jehovah’s Witnesses are excepted from the mandatory reporting statute because the undisputed facts in the record showed that the group’s canon law, church doctrine, or established church practice required the reports in this case to be kept confidential. The court found that the trial court had erred in ruling that Jehovah’s Witnesses were under a mandatory duty to report an initial allegation against the man who later abused Nunez.

At oral arguments on Sept. 13, one of Nunez’s attorneys, Jim Molloy, told the justices that the defendants did not report a known child abuser and that Nunez continued to be abused afterward. Justice Laurie McKinnon expressed skepticism during the hearing, asking whether the court wanted to look into what goes on within church circles and whether that brought the court up against the First Amendment.

Molloy said in a statement that the decision was “a very disappointing decision,” particularly, he said, “at this time in our society when religious and other institutions are covering up the sexual abuse of child victims.”

In a statement to NIU on Thursday, the Jehovah’s Witnesses organization, based in New York, said, “There are no winners in a case that involves child abuse.” It said that when such abuse occurs, Jehovah’s Witnesses follow the law, and that the Montana Supreme Court “has established” this. The statement added that Jehovah’s Witnesses “remain committed to helping parents protect their precious children.” In September, Thompson Falls elder Glenn Wilson, asked in an interview in front of the Kingdom Hall whether the elders should have done anything differently in handling the Nunez allegations, said, “I don’t know what it would have been.”

Nunez’s attorneys did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the ruling. Nunez and her attorneys could appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, but that court rarely overturns state supreme court rulings.

Source: Read the original report