Justices rejected Ohio State University’s appeal to dismiss litigation.
The Supreme Court rejected Ohio State University’s (OSU) appeal to dismiss hundreds of litigations seeking damages for sexual abuse perpetrated by the university’s long-time employee Richard Strauss.
Strauss served as the doctor for Ohio State’s men’s wrestling team from 1978 to 1998, during which Strauss sexually abused 177 young men. Strauss committed suicide in 2005, but a 2019 investigation found that Strauss’s abuses were reported to Ohio State multiple times during his tenure and the university refused to act.
OSU argued that Ohio’s statute of limitations, which only allows lawsuits to be brought forward within 2 years of an offense’s occurrence, should have begun when Strauss’s victims claimed to have been abused several decades ago. But the Supreme Court upheld the findings of the 6th Court of Appeals, saying that the statute of limitations began in 2019 “when [victims] knew or had reason to know” that Ohio State treated their reports with indifference.
As the Lord Leads, Pray with Us…
- For the judges who will hear and decide the lawsuits against the university.
- For the Supreme Court justices as they release the final rulings of this term.
Sources: Reuters, NBC News
