Now many years later, the school's counselor is dead and the principal at the time is in a care center with Alzheimer's disease. Rapp is serving time in an undisclosed prison in Florida, having been moved from Oklahoma where he pleaded no contest in 1999 to two counts of lewd molestation of a boy and was sentenced to a 40-year prison term. Fericks said these facts pose a serious problem with taking the case to trial now.

Justices expressed concerns on both sides of the case.

Chief Justice Christine Durham took issue with Keller's claim to side-step the statute of limitations, noting that most court rulings allowing an exception involve victims with repressed memories. No such claim has been made in the Colosimos case.

"I know of no court which, in absence of repressed memories, has been allowed around the statute of limitations," in a child sex abuse case, Durham said.

Justice Michael Wilkins asked church attorneys that if the passage of time has had an impact on witnesses, wouldn't that be more of a problem for the Colosimos to prove their case?

Tim Dunn, attorney for the Diocese of San Francisco said he likened the brothers' knowledge of abuse to a worker who loses a finger at a factory and doesn't take legal action until years later.

Keller said there are indications that school officials had planned to "wash their hands" of the abuse at the time it happened. With that attitude, his clients had no chance to find out more about Rapp's behavior.

The brothers are asking Utah's high court to overturn a previous decision by the Utah Court of Appeals which upheld that the statute of limitations had tolled on the case. A written ruling is expected to be issued in the coming months.

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