TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - Florida's highest court has ruled that the Constitution's guarantee of religious freedom does not protect churches from lawsuits alleging sexual abuse by clergy.
In its ruling Thursday, the Florida Supreme Court revived two separate cases that lower courts had dismissed because of the constitutional ban on government involvement in religion.
"The First Amendment does not provide a shield behind which a church may avoid liability" for negligent hiring and supervision of its clergy members, the court said.
Giving immunity to religious institutions in such lawsuits, the court said, could place them in preferred positions over secular institutions. The ruling puts Florida in line with the majority of other state and federal court jurisdictions, the court said.
The Florida Supreme Court did not address the specifics of the cases, but returned them to lower courts for further proceedings.
In one case, two women accused the Rev. Jan Malicki of sexually assaulting them in the 1990s while he worked at St. David Catholic Church in Davie. Their lawsuit alleged church officials and the Archdiocese of Miami were negligent in hiring Malicki without doing a background check.
In the other lawsuit, a woman alleged she was seduced by the Rev. William Dunbar Evans after she asked him for marital counseling at Holy Redeemer Episcopal Church in Lake Worth.
She sued Evans, the church, the Diocese of Southeast Florida and its bishop, claiming church officials knew of sexual misconduct in Evans' past.
Messages left after business hours Thursday at the offices of the churches' attorneys were not returned. No one answered the phones after-hours at the Miami archdiocese or the Southeast Florida diocese.