MCGUIRE v. St. Joseph Parish et al., Defendants. (2025)

Order, Supreme Court, New York County (Sabrina Kraus, J.), entered September 13, 2024, which denied the renewed motion of defendant Roman Catholic Bishop of Springfield, a Corporation Sole (RCBS) to dismiss the complaint for lack of personal jurisdiction and as barred by the Massachusetts Doctrine of Charitable Immunity, unanimously affirmed, without costs.

Plaintiff made a prima facie showing that RCBS is subject to personal jurisdiction under CPLR 302(a)(1), which provides that a court may exercise personal jurisdiction over any nondomiciliary who in person or through an agent transacts any business within the state.  The statute requires “[p]urposeful activities,” i.e., “those with which a defendant, through volitional acts, avails itself of the privilege of conducting activities within the forum State, thus invoking the benefits and protections of its laws” (PC–16 Doe v. Hill Regional Career High Sch., 223 A.D.3d 518, 203 N.Y.S.3d 572 [1st Dept. 2024] [internal quotation marks omitted]).

Plaintiff alleges that RCBS authorized a number of trips to New York, led by now deceased priests, as part of recruiting and preparing him for the priesthood.  These trips constituted “purposeful activity,” in New York, namely, an “act by which ․ defendant purposefully avails itself of the privilege of conducting activities” here (PC–16 Doe at 519, 203 N.Y.S.3d 572 [internal quotation marks omitted];  see Edwardo v. Roman Catholic Bishop of Providence, 579 F.Supp.3d 456, 473 [S.D.N.Y. 2022], affd 66 F.4th 69 [2d Cir. 2023]).

Additionally, plaintiff alleged sufficient facts to show a “substantial relationship between the transaction and the claim asserted” (Paterno v. Laser Spine Inst., 24 N.Y.3d 370, 376, 998 N.Y.S.2d 720, 23 N.E.3d 988 [2014] [internal quotation marks omitted]), having alleged “at minimum, a relatedness between the transaction and the legal claim such that the latter is not completely unmoored from the former” (Matter of New York Asbestos Litig., 212 A.D.3d 584, 586, 182 N.Y.S.3d 100 [1st Dept. 2023] [internal quotation marks omitted]).  Plaintiff claims that during those trips to New York, he was sexually assaulted on numerous occasions.  The allegations that RCBS did not provide adequate supervision and that it knew that one of the priests had previously assaulted plaintiff in Massachusetts and took no action, are arguably connected to its New York activity in authorizing the trips (see PC–16 Doe, 223 A.D.3d at 519, 203 N.Y.S.3d 572).

The motion court also correctly found that the Massachusetts Doctrine of Charitable Immunity, which that state abolished 50 years ago, did not apply to defeat plaintiff's claims.  RCBS is correct that the doctrine is a loss allocation rule that was not abolished until three years after the alleged abuse ended, and that both plaintiff and defendant were Massachusetts domiciliaries at the time of the abuse (see Neumeier v. Kuehner, 31 N.Y.2d 121, 128, 335 N.Y.S.2d 64, 286 N.E.2d 454 [1972]).  Nevertheless, application of that doctrine would be repugnant to the New York State public policy of providing sexually abused minors with an opportunity to seek justice, as explicitly codified in CPLR 214–g, the Child Victims Act (CVA) (compare New Schultz v. Boy Scouts of Am., Inc., 65 N.Y.2d 189, 491 N.Y.S.2d 90, 480 N.E.2d 679 [1985] [decided prior to enactment of the CVA]).  Thus, the doctrine of charitable immunity does not warrant dismissal of this action (see generally Brown & Brown, Inc. v. Johnson, 25 N.Y.3d 364, 12 N.Y.S.3d 606, 34 N.E.3d 357 [2015];  Kilberg v. Northeast Airlines, Inc., 9 N.Y.2d 34, 211 N.Y.S.2d 133, 172 N.E.2d 526 [1961]).