Michigan Supreme Court rules post-Nassar law not retroactive

LANSING, Mich. (WLNS) — A divided Michigan Supreme Court has ruled a law passed in 2018 changing the statute of limitations for victims of sexual abuse to file civil actions is not retroactive.

In other words, a person who is the victim of criminal sexual conduct prior to the 2018 law’s enactment, cannot apply the new statute of limitations for civil harms.

Justices Megan Cavanagh, Richard Bernstein, Elizabeth Welch, and Kyra Bolden signed onto the majority opinion penned by Cavanagh in the case McLain v. Roman Catholic Diocese of Lansing, et al.

Brian McLain sued the Diocese of Lansing, the Diocese of Baltimore, and Priest Richard Lobert in 2021. He alleged Lobert had sexually abused him in 1999 while he was housed at the juvenile detention facility known as J.W. Maxey Boys Training School in Livingston County. He alleged in his lawsuit that he did not connect several mental health concerns to the abuse until disclosing the abuse during a therapy session in 2020. In 2021, he sued.

McLain argued that the new 2018 law, which allowed a person who had been the victim of criminal sexual conduct as a minor who determined a harm from the abuse had three years to file a civil action seeking damages for the harm. The law created two specific new statutes of limitations.

The first, allowed a minor abused to file between the ages of 19 and 28. The second allowed an abuse victim to sue within three years of discovering harm linked to the abuse.

The defendants argued the law was not retroactive.

Judge L. Suzanne Geddis of the Livingston Circuit Court ruled that McLain’s claims could move forward under the 2018 law. However, a Michigan Court of Appeals decision found that his claims could not continue because the 2018 law did not apply retroactively.

The Michigan Supreme Court ruling found similarly.

In a dissenting opinion penned by Justice Brian Zahra and joined by Justices Elizabeth Clement and David Viviano. While the trio concluded the 2018 law did not apply retroactively, they disagreed with the majority opinion of when McLain’s legal claims expired. They argued because the abuse began in 1999, at most, McLain’s cause of action expired in 2003.

The result of the decision is that McLain’s lawsuit will be dismissed because it was not filed in a timely manner.

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