Judge dismisses sex abuse case against Charlotte mission group. Protesters call on feds.
A Mecklenburg judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed by six people who say they were abused in Nigerian schools that had ties to a Charlotte-based missionary organization.
That sparked a demonstration Monday outside the Charles R. Jonas Federal Courthouse by people urging U.S. courts to do more to hold abusers of children in overseas missionary schools accountable for abuse.
Because the alleged abuse took place in Nigeria, Superior Court Judge Robert Ervin asked attorneys to return last week with detailed analysis of whether that country’s statute of limitations would allow the plaintiffs to sue in North Carolina.
Plaintiffs’ attorney Laurie Mellier said she hoped their argument would show that international law backed up her clients’ right to sue. But Ervin dismissed the case, according to court records obtained by The Charlotte Observer.
While a contested North Carolina law opened the door in 2020 for adults of any age to sue over childhood sexual abuse, state law forces local courts in some cases to defer to other jurisdictions’ practices.
In December, a handful of plaintiffs sued SIM USA in Mecklenburg County Superior Court. In court filings, they say that former staff at two schools in Nigeria – Kent Academy in Miango and Hillcrest Academy in Jos – sexually abused them when the plaintiffs were underage students there.
The plaintiffs, now in their 50s and 60s, say that the Christian missionary organization helped run the two schools and should be held accountable. SIM spokesman Nathan Krupke told The Observer that it had no part in the academies’ management – and, furthermore, its attorneys argued in court filings that Nigeria’s strict statute of limitations should prevent the lawsuit from continuing.
Even if Nigerian law weren’t an issue, the plaintiffs would have faced a challenge on American soil – a constitutional challenge in North Carolina.
The former students were able to file the suit about long-ago incidents because a state law opened two-year period, called a lookback window, until December 2021. It temporary lifted statutes of limitations for child sex abuse civil lawsuits in North Carolina.
But a three-judge panel ruled last year that the window is unconstitutional. The state Supreme Court agreed last month to review that decision and either concur with or overturn it. Their decision will influence arguments in dozens of similar cases filed during the lookback window.
Mellier said Wednesday that her clients are still deciding how to respond to the dismissal.
On Monday, the ruling favoring SIM USA reverberated beyond those directly affected by the lawsuit.
Letta Cartlige on Monday used children’s chalk to trace the names of alleged perpetrators onto the sidewalk outside the courthouse on Monday afternoon, calling on the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate into the institutions, including SIM USA, that they say managed the schools.
Cartlage did not join the lawsuit but says she was sexually abused while enrolled at Hillcrest Academy in the 1980s. She traveled from Denver to Charlotte on Sunday to voice her disappointment about the case’s dismissal.
She says she’s used Facebook to connect with dozens of fellow survivors who want to see surviving former Hillcrest leaders who were abusive named and their victims supported.
Barring that, Cartlige said she wants SIM to help fund an investigation into sexual abuse at affiliated schools and pay for survivors’ resulting mental health treatment.
After smudging a streak of pink chalk from her nose, she told a handful of reporters gathered outside the courthouse how the ruling had shaken her.
The Rev. Rich Darr, founder of Missionary Kid Safety Net, joined Cartlige. While SIM USA insists that it isn’t responsible for managing the two schools, Darr joined Cartlige armed with handouts describing a history of connections between the schools and SIM, including an outline of how one of the schools was named for a SIM missionary.
This story was originally published August 17, 2022 at 6:00 AM.
