“[T]here is no such thing as a vested right to do wrong.”
Dissenting Justices Wayne Douglas and Rick Lawrence made that point in the Maine Supreme Judicial Court’s recent decision, where the majority ruled the Maine legislature did not have the power to extend the statute of limitations [SOL] to past victims of their church’s sexual abuse.
Justice Douglas wrote:
The vested rights doctrine is the lynchpin of the Court’s constitutional analysis and holding in this case.… the Court concludes that the Bishop acquired a vested right in immunity from suit when the former statute of limitations expired because the Legislature is wholly without power to revive such a claim retroactively. I disagree.
I also disagree with the majority’s opinion; they were completely confused about the difference between a right and a remedy. The legislature had the right to change the remedy of the SOL retroactively.
The Lawsuit
The case is Portland v. Roman Catholic Bishop of Portland. The lawsuit was by thirteen plaintiffs against the Roman Catholic Bishop of Portland for abuse by his clergy when they were children. The state legislature’s 2021 amendment to the law opened the courts to “all actions based upon sexual acts toward minors regardless of the date of the sexual act and regardless of whether the statute of limitations on such actions expired prior to the effective date of this subsection.”
All actions. The court’s majority ruled the state’s extension of the statute of limitations for all actions of sex abuse was unconstitutional. The vote on the court was 5-2, with the majority refusing to accept Maine’s extended statute of limitations for survivors of sexual abuse. The two dissenters voted with the victims who were allowed to get into court by the legislature’s SOL.
As the dissent points out, the legislature changed the SOL because they now understand that abusers take many years to remember their abuse and to report it. If the SOL is short, the courts are closed to them even on the first day that they have a memory of their abuse.
The Majority
The majority said two conflicting things. First, that Maine law is clear that a lawsuit cannot be revived after a statute of limitations has run. Second, a Maine legislature has never enacted a statute like this before. Never ever. Not “in over two hundred years” had Maine revived SOLs after they had run. This is why the dissent correctly concludes “this is a case of first impression in Maine.” And the court should have treated it as one.
The opinion is 101 pages long, with many citations and footnotes. The majority gives constitutional, separation of powers, common law, and statutory analysis, concluding “we have interpreted our constitutional text to reject retrospective legislation impairing vested rights, which rights include the protection from revival of causes of action after their statutes of limitations have expired” (emphasis added).
That vested rights language is the key to everything. The majority notes that the courts have distinguished between a right and a remedy. They are two different things. They note that a U.S. Supreme Court opinion distinguishes between those two items. However, the majority rejects the distinction because it “ignores reality.” Their reality is that the Maine Constitution protects against retroactive impairment of vested rights, and those rights can never be destroyed. They see the church defendant’s property as their vested right that can never be taken from them once the SOL has run. Never ever.
The Dissent
As I noted above, the dissent is correct to point out that it is odd to cite precedent when the legislature is doing something it has not done for 200 years. The legislature and the dissent took account of the unique and distinctive harms of sexual abuse, which remains hidden for many years. All the studies show that abuse victims block their abuse, and do not remember it until many years later, if ever. “These legislative changes were prompted by an evolving awareness of the lasting impacts that childhood sexual abuse has on victims and the related dynamics of delayed disclosure.” The legislature recognized “the uniqueness and urgency of the circumstances.”
Moreover, the dissent insists that the SOL is affecting a remedy, not a vested right. “Because statutes of limitations were viewed as affecting remedies, they did not give rise to vested rights.” Maine’s case law says “[t]here is no such thing as a vested right to a particular remedy.”
The dissenters deal with reality better than the majority does. To insist upon a vested right where it does not exist “effectively confers an absolute constitutional right upon an alleged tortfeasor to be relieved of having to answer to a lawsuit of this nature based on the age of the claim, regardless of the circumstances and contrary to other express constitutional guarantees. ‘[T]here is no such thing as a vested right to do wrong.’”
The dissent also notes that Maine’s new SOL law did not create a new liability for the bishop that did not exist in the past. Instead, “it simply removed the bar against filing a lawsuit that seeks to establish liability for past conduct.” Which is a power that the legislature has.
The Result
The dissent stood with the legislature and the victims of sexual abuse. In contrast, the majority’s recognition of a vested right in an SOL “would permanently bar Dupuis and other claimants who allegedly suffered sexual abuse as children at the hands of persons with authority over them from pursuing a remedy in Maine courts.”
The majority thinks that’s a great result. The dissent correctly notes, however, that this decision “undermines another right enshrined in our Constitution for others, including Dupuis and the other plaintiffs here.” The Maine Constitution provides:
Every person, for an injury inflicted on the person or the person’s reputation, property or immunities, shall have remedy by due course of law; and right and justice shall be administered freely and without sale, completely and without denial, promptly and without delay.
That part of the constitution is supposed to guarantee “for every wrong there shall be a legal remedy.”
Not yet, in Maine.
