Justices to hear arguments in abuse case

The case of two brothers who sued the Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake City and Judge Memorial High School claiming they had been molested by a former priest when they were schoolboys is back in court.

The Utah Supreme Court will hear oral arguments Wednesday in the case of Ralph Louis Colosimo, now 52, and Charles Matthew Colosimo, now 44, who sued in 2003, claiming they had been sexually abused by a former teacher and priest, James Rapp, at various times between 1970-75.

At issue is whether the brothers should have asked what the church and school knew about Rapp's behavior at the time.

The high court also will hear arguments as to whether the brothers should have filed a lawsuit earlier, before the statute of limitations ran out.

"They were boys," argues Larry Keller, lawyer for the Colosimos. "They didn't have any way of knowing these entities knew about Rapp."

Rapp pleaded no contest in 1999 to two counts of lewd molestation of a boy in Oklahoma and was sentenced to a 40-year prison term that he began serving in Helena, Okla. He was moved in 2002 to an undisclosed prison in Florida, according to Jo Ellyn Rackleff of the Florida Department of Corrections.

The Colosimos filed an $80 million lawsuit in Salt Lake City in 2003, claiming church and school officials knew of Rapp's pedophile tendencies, but were more concerned with protecting institutions than children. Named in the suit were the diocese, the school's board of financial trustees, the Archdiocese of San Francisco, and the religious order to which the priest belonged, the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales.

The Colosimos maintained Rapp began repeatedly abusing Ralph Colosimo in 1970 or 1971, when he attended Judge Memorial, and repeated similar abusive behavior with Charles Colosimo starting when he was 10 and a student at St. Ann's Catholic School.

A district court judge ruled the statute of limitations had run out for the Colosimos' lawsuit and that decision was upheld by the Utah Court of Appeals.

The attorney for the diocese and school trustees declined to be interviewed, but the legal brief for both entities says the only real question before the Supreme Court is whether there is any legal theory that would excuse the Colosimos' failure to file suit against third parties before the statute of limitations ended.