State law says wrongful death lawsuits have to be filed within three years of the death. But a Jackson County judge says the Kansas City-St. Joseph Catholic diocese has engaged in cover-up, fraud, and concealment of abuse by a priest so much that the statute of imitations doesn’t protect it from a lawsuit. The judge has dismissed the Diocese effort to throw out a wrongful death lawsuit against it filed by the parents of a 14-year-old boy who killed himself in 1983. The priest faces about 25 sexual abuse lawsuits.
