Senate President Joan Fitz-Gerald released hundreds of pages of documents Thursday regarding her efforts to open a two-year window in state law so that past victims of child sexual abuse can sue for damages.
The e-mails, correspondence and witness testimony showed deep concern about Senate Bill 143. Victims of sexual abuse said the bill would help them heal. Opponents contended it was an attack on the Catholic Church.
One key issue – whether Fitz-Gerald was guided in writing the bill by a prominent out-of-state plaintiff’s attorney with financial interest in suing the church – was laid to rest.
Fitz-Gerald did not have contact with Jeff Anderson, a lawyer who has represented sexual-abuse victims with claims against the Catholic Church.
A church attorney has said that matters little because Anderson helped write a California bill that Fitz-Gerald’s legislation is based on.
The documents did include testimony from Marci Hamilton, a law school professor in New York who has represented clergy-abuse victims.
But Fitz-Gerald said she sought Hamilton’s advice because she is a well-known constitutional scholar.
Fitz-Gerald said she was referred to Hamilton by the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests.
Fitz-Gerald, D-Jefferson County, said she was contacted by SNAP members after articles in The Denver Post last summer that detailed a series of allegations against Catholic clergy.
Fitz-Gerald said she was not troubled that Hamilton has previously represented victims.
“I know her as a constitutional lawyer who has expertise in this field,” Fitz-Gerald said, noting that Hamilton paid her own way to fly to Colorado to testify in support of the bill.
Hamilton on Thursday said her half-hour conversation with Fitz-Gerald was limited to whether the Colorado bill would pass constitutional muster.
“Scintillating, isn’t it?” Hamilton said.
Hamilton said she does pro-bono work for SNAP. She said that she gets paid for work as a constitutional expert working on behalf of victims but that she does not get a cut of any settlements, like plaintiffs’ lawyers do.
Tim Dore, executive director of the Colorado Catholic Conference, which lobbies for the state’s three dioceses, said he could not comment on the documents released by Fitz-Gerald because he had not seen them.
Fitz-Gerald said she also contacted the Colorado Trial Lawyers Association before her bill came up in committee. She said she wanted to know how to craft a “certificate of review” process so false claims could be weeded out before going to court.
She said she dropped that effort as a possible amendment when bill opponents told her it would do no good.
She rebutted charges that she has an anti-Catholic bias.
“I’m also a Catholic who has put money into the church,” she said. “There’s a stained-glass window with my name on it at Christ on the Mountain Church.”
