It’s amazing the damages that people try to claim in lawsuits. In Albany, three women tried to sue the Catholic diocese for “forcing” them to walk down a hallway lined with photos of priests went they to the diocese to report sexual abuse by a priest. The judge threw the case out for a “lack of cause of action.” Basically, they had no legal basis to sue. It’s not like the diocese forced them to walk down the hallway or that a reasonable person would be expected to be traumatized by it, especially since they weren’t claiming that their abuser’s picture was on the wall.
What if the person had claimed that a black man had abused her and she had to walk down a hallway with pictures of Martin Luther King, Jr., or Booker T. Washington? Would it be reasonable for people to assume that any image of a black man would cause pain or would that be considered racism on the victim’s part.
I think the judge did the right thing here.
