Regarding teaching children to protect themselves from
sexual abuse, here is a snippet from a recent California
opinion involving the Boy Scouts:
<In 1996 appellant Mario R. Juarez (Juarez) sued respondents Boy Scouts of America, Inc. (BSA) and the San Francisco Bay Area Council (BAC) (collectively, the Scouts), fn. 1 alleging that in 1990 when he was a member of Boy Scout Troop 255 (Troop 255), he was sexually molested by Jorge Francisco Paz (Paz), a scoutmaster of the troop. Juarez also sued Mary Help of Christians Church, a church of the Diocese of Oakland (the Church) where Troop 255 held its meetings. The trial court granted summary judgment in favor of the Scouts and the Church following the imposition of evidentiary sanctions conclusively establishing that no information was available to the Scouts or the Church that would cause any of them to suspect Paz had a propensity to molest children prior to the time he was accused of molesting Juarez.
Juarez appeals from the judgment dismissing his action, claiming the imposition of evidentiary sanctions was an abuse of discretion. Juarez also challenges the court's issuance of a protective order preventing discovery of [81 Cal.App.4th 385] certain confidential records maintained by the Scouts. As his final contention, Juarez maintains that even if the trial court's discovery rulings are upheld on appeal, he has submitted sufficient evidence to raise a triable issue of fact with respect to the Scouts's alleged negligence in selecting, supervising, and retaining Paz. He also claims the Scouts owed and breached a duty to take reasonable measures to protect him from sexual assault. He seeks to maintain his lawsuit against the Church on every cause of action alleged against the Scouts, including an additional one for premises liability.
We affirm the trial court's discovery sanction and issuance of a protective order. We further conclude the trial court properly granted summary judgment on all of Juarez's causes of action except one. The only viable cause of action is premised on the theory that the Scouts failed to take reasonable measures to protect Juarez from sexual molestation by Paz. We conclude such a legal duty was owed to Juarez, and that the record adduced on summary judgment has raised triable issues of fact as to whether the duty of care was breached and caused harm to Juarez. Consequently, we reverse summary judgement as to this claim and allow it to proceed solely against the Scouts.>>
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The court of appeal returned the case to the trial court
and allowed the plaintiff to proceed on the theory
that the Scouts did not ensure that their
materials (such as videotapes), dealing with how
children could protect themselves from sexual predators,
were made available to the plaintiff's troop. The troop
also consisted principally of Spanish speaking children
and apparently the materials, available in Spanish,
were never provided.
Still a tough link for the plaintiff to ultimately
show that these materials would have actually helped
him to avoid the abuse......JMO.
M |
