DONOHUE, JUSTICE
ARGUED: October 20, 2020
Appeal from the Order of the Superior Court entered June 11, 2019 at No. 97 WDA 2018, reversing the Order of the Court of Common Pleas of Blair County entered December 15, 2017 at No. 2016 GN 1919, and remanding.
BAER, C.J., SAYLOR, TODD, DONOHUE, DOUGHERTY, WECHT, MUNDY, JJ.
OPINION
DONOHUE, JUSTICE
In this appeal, we address the proper application of the statute of limitations to a tort action filed by Renee' Rice ("Rice") against the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown and its bishops (collectively, the "Diocese") for their alleged role in covering up and facilitating a series of alleged sexual assaults committed by the Reverend Charles F. Bodziak. Rice alleged that Bodziak sexually abused her from approximately 1974 through 1981. She did not file suit against Bodziak or the Diocese until June 2016, thirty-five years after the alleged abuse stopped.
For the reasons set forth herein, we conclude that a straightforward application of Pennsylvania's statute of limitations requires that Rice's complaint be dismissed as untimely. Accordingly, we reverse the order of the Superior Court and reinstate the trial court's dismissal of the case.
I. Procedural History
A. Rice's Complaint
Rice filed her initial complaint on June 20, 2016, asserting multiple claims, including breach of fiduciary duty, fraud, and conspiracy. Rice (born in 1967) and her family were members of St. Leo, a parish within the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese and she attended the affiliated Catholic school. First Amended Complaint, 8/16/2016, ¶¶ 21-23. Rice alleges that Father Bodziak was assigned to St. Leo's and began a "grooming" process which included taking Rice and other children on various youth activities. Id. ¶ 25. She contended that he first sexually assaulted her in 1974 when she was between eight or nine years old, placing his hand between her legs while the two were seated in a vehicle following one of these outings. Id. ¶ 26. She averred that he would routinely touch her private areas during subsequent outings, and on one occasion he kissed her and inserted his tongue into her mouth. Id. ¶¶ 27-28. At some unspecified point in time, Bodziak allegedly spoke to Rice's parents, requesting and receiving their permission to have Rice perform various chores at the rectory, where Bodziak resided. According to Rice, the assaults escalated at this point, as Bodziak would supply Rice with alcohol and then fondle her genitalia and kiss her. On one occasion, he allegedly inserted his fingers into her vagina. Id. ¶ 29. Bodziak assured Rice that the activities "were acceptable because he liked her and she was 'special.'" Id. ¶ 32. In her complaint, Rice alleged that these assaults initially occurred once or twice a month, and later rose to the level of approximately twice a week through 1981. Id. ¶ 33. Rice's complaint further alleged that Bishop Joseph Adamec served "as the Bishop or leader" of the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese from 1987 until 2011, while Bishop James Hogan filled that same role from 1966 through 1986. Id. ¶¶ 3-4. Rice alleged that both men were empowered to supervise and control all priests assigned to the diocese, including parish assignments. Id. ¶ 6.
Rice did not report Bodziak's abuse to the authorities until "the first half of 2006" when she "reported her history of sexual abuse by Bodziak to Defendants Adamec and the Diocese." Id. ¶ 43. By letter dated July 17, 2006, Bishop Adamec "invite[d] [Rice] to share that information through our diocesan process for reviewing allegations." Exhibit A to Complaint. The letter explained that Rice could seek assistance from Sister Marilyn Welch as a designated victims' advocate, who would help present the cases to the Diocesan Allegation Review Board. Rice did not respond.
In early 2014, the District Attorney of Cambria County issued a referral to the Office of Attorney General regarding reports of sexual abuse occurring within the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown. On March 1, 2016, the 37th Investigating Grand Jury issued a report finding that hundreds of children were victimized by over fifty individual priests or religious leaders. The grand jury determined that "Bishops James Hogan and Joseph Adamec ... took actions that further endangered children" by returning priests to the ministry/parishes "with full knowledge they were child predators." Grand Jury Report at 6. The report discussed the existence of" 'secret archives' … used to hide scandalous information, such as sex abuse by priests." Id. at 8 (quoting news coverage from the Tribune-Democrat newspaper). With respect to Bodziak in particular, the Report indicated that Bodziak had sexually abused other victims and that the Diocese had been made aware of these incidents. In her complaint, Rice averred that upon reading the Report, she learned for the first time "that the [Diocese] ha[s] a long history of protecting child predators at the expense of innocent and vulnerable children, and knew or should have known of Bodziak's sexual attraction to young children and his inappropriate physical contact with them." First Amended Complaint, 8/16/2016, at 46 (unnecessary capitalization omitted).
B. The Trial Court and Superior Court Opinions
The Diocese filed an answer and new matter followed by a motion for judgment on the pleadings, raising the statute of limitations as a defense. The Diocese argued that as Bodziak's last alleged assault occurred in 1981 the statute of limitations expired long ago. In support, the Diocese relied on a line of cases stemming from the Superior Court's decision in Meehan v. Archdiocese of Philadelphia, 870 A.2d 912 (Pa. Super. 2005), which reasoned, in relevant part, that
The child abuse is the injury in this matter, not the alleged cover-up by the Archdiocese (otherwise, any member of the Catholic Church could conceivably bring suit against the Archdiocese, absent any abuse, alleging injury from the Archdiocese's general conduct). Unlike traditional discovery rule cases where the injury, itself, is not known or cannot be reasonably ascertained, the plaintiffs' injuries, here, were known when the abuse occurred.
The [Plaintiffs] are really claiming that they were unaware, not of their injury, but of a secondary cause of their injury (the primary cause being the individual who committed the abuse). The plaintiffs claim that a jury should determine if the plaintiffs should have investigated these secondary parties during the limitations period or if the plaintiffs were unable, despite reasonable diligence, to bring suit against these secondary parties until 2002.
Id. at 920.
Accord Baselice v. Franciscan Friars Assumption BVM Province, Inc.,
879 A.2d 270, 277 (Pa. Super. 2005) ("As in
Meehan, appellant, here, is really claiming that he was unaware, not of his injury, but of a secondary cause of his injury[.]"). The trial court granted the motion, agreeing that "as in
Meehan and
Baselice, it was always known to the Plaintiff that the causes of her alleged injury were the actions of Defendant Bodziak and the Diocese overseeing him." Trial Court Opinion and Order, 12/15/2017, at 10.
The Superior Court reversed. Rice v. Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown, 212 A.3d 1055 (Pa. Super. 2019). The court concluded that the "discovery rule" and "fraudulent concealment" both applied and reversed the trial court. For the discovery rule analysis, the court held that Rice alleged sufficient facts to place the issues of notice and diligence to the jury. The Superior Court accepted that the relevant chronological event was when Rice could have learned of the cover-up, and not simply knowledge of the abuses as held by Meehan. The Superior Court concluded that "Meehan, Baselice, and their progeny reviewed child-sexual-abuse allegations in [a] vacuum[, ]" a practice forbidden by Nicolaou v. Martin, 195 A.3d 880 (Pa. 2018), according to the Superior Court. Id. at 1064-65.
The panel proceeded to "apply Nicolaou to Ms. Rice's discovery-rule theory and alleged facts." Id. at 1066. The Superior Court established what it perceived as dueling sets of facts that must be submitted to the jury for fact-finding. On the one hand, the Diocese argued that the facts as pled in the complaint indicated that Rice knew of the injuries inflicted by Bodziak, that Bodziak was employed by the Diocese, and that the abuse occurred on church grounds. On the other, Rice argued "no reasonable person would have suspected, much less investigated, the Diocesan Defendants for the torts she has alleged until the Grand Jury Report became public." Id. Extrapolating from its reading of Nicolaou, the Superior Court determined that applying the statute of limitations based on the Diocese's argument required viewing the Diocese's facts in a vacuum. The panel characterized the Meehan line of cases as "credit[ing] the facts favorable to the archdiocese and its hierarchy." Id. at 1065. According to the Superior Court, pursuant to Nicolaou, courts could no longer ignore inferences favorable to the plaintiffs' discovery-rule theory, which included, inter alia, Rice's assertion that she had no basis to suspect that the Diocese would cover up abuse and the massive investigative efforts needed to ultimately uncover the Diocese's transgressions. Id. at 1065-66. Accordingly, the panel determined that the jury must resolve the competing facts.
The Superior Court next addressed the fraudulent concealment argument. According to Rice she had a "special, confidential relationship" with the Diocese requiring it to disclose its knowledge of the cover-up to Rice. Id. at 1067. The Diocese argued that Meehan had previously rejected similar arguments. Meehan, 870 A.2d at 921-22 (noting that the plaintiffs alleged a relationship that "equates to a fiduciary relationship" and rejecting the fraudulent concealment doctrine). The Superior Court determined that the trial court's ruling "overextended Meehan." Rice, 212 A.3d at 1067. It viewed Meehan as rejecting a fraudulent concealment argument only in the context of the "regular" parishioner-church relationship shared by all members of the parish, whereas this case involves an individualized relationship between Rice and the Diocese based on, inter alia, her service "as a parish organist, cantor, and rectory cleaner, coupled with her young age, Catholic schooling, and the trust she placed in the Diocesan Defendants to guide and to protect her." Id. at 1060. Adopting the nomenclature of Doe v. Presiding Bishop of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, 2012 WL 3782454 (D. Idaho 2012) (unpublished), the Rice panel concluded that Pennsylvania law would henceforth recognize the possibility of a "parishioner-plus" relationship. See also Doe v. Liberatore, 478 F.Supp.2d 742, 753 (M.D. Pa. 2007) (predicting without discussion of the parameters of the duty that this Court would recognize a relationship between church and parishioner for purposes of the breach of fiduciary duty tort).
According to the Superior Court, if Rice could prove the relationship existed, the fraudulent concealment theory could then apply. It is not entirely clear from the Superior Court's opinion the extent to which it distinguished between affirmative acts that misled Rice versus the Diocese's obligation to come forward and reveal facts based on the purported relationship. The court identified both positive acts of misrepresentation ("[Rice] claims that the Diocesan Defendants' words and actions led her to believe she was safe with priests in general and with [Fr.] Bodziak in particular") as well as passive acts ("their refusal to enlighten her"). Rice, 212 A.3d at 1073-74 (internal citations omitted, second alteration in original). The panel acknowledged that silence in the absence of a duty to speak cannot qualify as fraudulent concealment. Id. at 1068 (citing Lange v. Burd, 800 A.2d 336 (Pa. Super. 2002)). It logically followed that silence in the presence of a duty to speak can qualify. In short, the required act of concealment is met if the relationship imposed a duty to speak.
Finally, portions of the Superior Court's opinion suggested that Rice could bring a cause of action for civil conspiracy as a separate tort subject to its own time limitation period without reference to the underlying torts committed by Bodziak. It is unclear if the Superior Court opined that an action based on this tort could proceed even if the discovery rule and/or fraudulent concealment doctrines did not apply. On the one hand, the panel suggested that the civil conspiracy tort was separate. "If Ms. Rice proves all of this to a jury, she filed her lawsuit well within the two-year statute of limitations for civil conspiracy[.]" Id. at 1076. On the other, the Superior Court recognized that "it 'is well-settled that the statute of limitations for conspiracy is the same as that for the underlying action which forms the basis of the conspiracy.'" Id. at 1062 (quoting Kingston Coal Co. v. Felton Min. Co., Inc., 690 A.2d 284, 287 (Pa. 1997)).
We granted the Diocese's petition for allowance of appeal on the following questions.
(1) Did the Superior Court commit reversible error by misinterpreting the fact-specific holding of
Nicolaou v. Martin, 649 Pa. 227,
195 A.3d 880 (2018) - a latent disease/medical malpractice case that did not purport to overrule
Meehan v. Archdiocese of Phila., 870 A.2d 912 (Pa. Super. 2005),
Baselice v. Franciscan Friars Assumption BVM Province, Inc.,
879 A.2d 270 (Pa. Super. 2005), or any other precedent - thereby abrogating the statute of limitations and the discovery rule in civil actions?
(2) Did the Superior Court commit reversible error by establishing for the first time a rule whereby a fiduciary once in a confidential relationship owes a never-ending duty to speak after the end of the relationship, thereby eliminating a plaintiff's duty to exercise due diligence and conduct a reasonable investigation in support of his/her causes of action?
(3) Did the Superior Court commit reversible error by overruling precedent and holding that a plaintiff may bring a secondary cause of action for civil conspiracy where the primary cause of the harm is time barred?
Rice v. Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown, 226 A.3d 560 (Pa. 2020) (per curiam). When reviewing a trial court's order sustaining judgment on the pleadings, our standard of review is to determine whether, based on the facts the plaintiffs pled, "the law makes recovery impossible."
Cagey v. Commonwealth, 179 A.3d 458, 463 (Pa. 2018)). A judgment on the pleadings will be granted where, on the facts averred, the law says with certainty that no recovery is possible.
Emerich v. Phila. Ctr. for Human Dev., Inc., 720 A.2d 1032, 1034 (Pa. 1998). We regard as true all well-pleaded allegations in Rice's pleadings, as she is the non-moving party, and consider against her only those factual allegations in the Diocese's pleadings that Rice has admitted.
Grimes v. Enter. Leasing Co. of Phila., LLC, 105 A.3d 1188, 1190 (Pa. 2014)
.
II. Parties' Arguments
The Diocese argues that Meehan was correctly decided and based on its reasoning, Rice's knowledge of Bodziak's alleged assaults commenced the running of the statute of limitations. The discovery rule cannot apply because it governs situations in which the plaintiff is reasonably unaware of the injury. Because Rice knew of Bodziak's torts, she was required to investigate the Diocese as a possible additional cause of her injuries during the period of the statute of limitations as a matter of law. Diocese's Brief at 27-28. The Diocese criticizes the Superior Court's conclusion that Nicolaou overruled Meehan and its progeny sub silentio. Id. at 41.
Regarding fraudulent concealment, the Diocese argues that it did not mislead Rice. It again focuses on Bodziak's tortious conduct and explains that for fraudulent concealment to apply, the qualifying affirmative acts by the Diocese would be limited to factual misrepresentations regarding those injuries, e.g., assertions that the alleged sexual abuse did not occur or that the acts did not occur on church property. Id. at 61. Turning to the theory that silence qualifies as the relevant act of concealment, it stresses that the key component of any fiduciary relationship is the superior position of one of the parties with respect to some fact known only to one side of the relationship. Id. at 65. Rice knew she was abused and did not need any further information from the Diocese to file suit against Bodziak. Additionally, the Diocese argues that the existence of any fiduciary-like relationship in this matter is irrelevant when considering application of fraudulent concealment in conjunction with the discovery rule, which still requires the plaintiff to act with reasonable diligence. In its view, the Superior Court's recognition of the "parishioner-plus" relationship completely relieves Rice of those obligations by creating a "never-ending, interminable duty to speak after the end of the relationship." Id. at 67. Cases applying fraudulent concealment have found that upon termination of the relationship the duty to speak ends. As a result, the Superior Court's novel "parishioner-plus" rule exists without limitation and undermines our discovery rule jurisprudence by relieving Rice of her discovery rule obligations.
In contrast, Rice maintains that the focus for the discovery rule is on the plaintiff's ignorance of the injury and asserts that a plaintiff must be aware of both the injury and its cause. While conceding that she could have filed suit against Bodziak, Rice maintains that she "was not on actual or constructive notice of Defendants' intentional acts and no amount of reasonable diligence could have discovered them, because the information regarding abusive priests was kept hidden in secret archives and unknowable to her or any outside agency" prior to the release of the grand jury report. Rice's Brief at 24. She argues that she had no obligation to investigate the Diocese's potential culpability absent a reason to suspect their involvement. Rice argues that whether or not she had an obligation to investigate presents a question of fact.
As to her ability to commence an investigation into the Diocese and its potential culpability based on her knowledge of the injury itself, Rice argues that the same logic applies to her case as in other cases where the discovery rule applies. For instance, a plaintiff suffering pain from a botched medical procedure can seek a second opinion and can learn the truth of what happened from that source. Rice argues that she was in a much worse position because she had no ability to discover the extent of the Diocese's alleged cover-ups. The information disclosed in the 2016 report was, in her view, "simply unknowable" until its publication. Id. at 32.
As to fraudulent concealment, Rice asserts that the Diocese both affirmatively misled her and had a duty to disclose its cover-up. For the former proposition, she disagrees that the concealment is limited to information regarding Bodziak's culpability; she states that her claims are focused on the Diocesan defendants themselves, who, inter alia, "falsely represented to her that each of the Diocese's priests … would act in her best interests and in the best interests of the children they served." Id. at 50. Those misrepresentations concern their torts and not Bodziak's torts. "Why … would she or should she be required under the doctrine to plead acts of concealment on the part of Defendants about matters she acknowledges she has always known and which have no bearing on the fraud claims she ultimately asserted against them?" Id. at 51. As to the duty to disclose, Rice urges the Court to recognize the "parishioner-plus" relationship, which, if established, would impose the requisite duty to speak.
Id. at 794.
As indicated, fraud or concealment incorporates a causal element by asking whether the fraud or concealment "cause[d] the plaintiff to relax his vigilance or deviate from his right of inquiry[.]" Id. That naturally raises the question as to whether a defendant who engaged in acts that amount to concealment for purposes of the doctrine can still raise a statute of limitations defense absent a plaintiff possessing actual knowledge of his or her cause of action. In Fine, this Court acknowledged the question: "Inasmuch as the doctrine is premised on a defendant's obstructionist conduct, there is an argument that a plaintiff's actual knowledge, of his injury and its cause, as opposed to the knowledge that reasonable diligence would give him, should control." Fine, 870 A.2d at 860-61. We rejected that view, concluding "that the standard of reasonable diligence, which is applied to the running of the statute of limitations when tolled under the discovery rule, also should apply when tolling takes place under the doctrine of fraudulent concealment." Id. at 861. Thus, even affirmatively misleading acts do not estop a defendant from invoking the statute of limitations if the party has failed to act with reasonable diligence.
Finally, the analysis employed can depart from these general principles if the legislature signals a contrary intention. For instance, in Rotkiske, the high Court noted that "Congress has enacted statutes that expressly include the language Rotkiske asks us to read in, setting limitations periods to run from the date on which the violation occurs or the date of discovery of such violation." 140 S.Ct. at 361 (citations omitted). Of note here, the Superior Court panel was persuaded by the fraudulent concealment analysis set forth in Doe v. Presiding Bishop of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, 2012 WL 3782454 (D. Idaho 2012). In that case, the applicable statute of limitation provided that where a suit is based on fraud or mistake the cause of action is "not to be deemed to have accrued until the discovery, by the aggrieved party, of the facts constituting the fraud or mistake." Idaho Code Ann. § 5-218. The Pennsylvania statute of limitation at issue here, in contrast, does not reference discovery of the relevant facts.
IV. Analysis
A. Discovery Rule
Rice's Brief at 37. The flaw in the foregoing logic is that the plaintiff in Nicolaou, unlike Rice, lacked knowledge of an injury linked to the conduct of another.
Nicolaou involved a medical malpractice case for an injury arising out of the failure to diagnose and treat Lyme disease. Nicolaou was bitten by a tick sometime in 2001. Over the next eight to nine years, she sought treatment for symptoms of an unknown etiology from several providers, who ordered a total of four Lyme disease tests, all of which came back negative. An MRI reported findings "seen in infectious or inflammatory demyelinating process, such as [MS] or Lyme Disease[.]" Nicolaou, 195 A.3d at 883 (quoting record). Based on the MRI, a doctor informed Nicolaou that she suffered from multiple sclerosis ("MS"). Notwithstanding, Nicolaou continued to believe that she may have had Lyme disease. In July of 2009, she began seeing a nurse who relayed her opinion that Lyme disease, not MS, was the cause of Nicolaou's problems and prescribed antibiotics for Lyme disease to see how Nicolaou responded. She responded positively to the treatment. During one of these visits, the nurse offered the option of an advanced test for Lyme disease that cost approximately $250. Nicolaou initially declined but later decided to take the test, which came back positive for Lyme disease. Within two years of receiving the results, Nicolaou filed suit against various defendants for their misdiagnoses. The trial court granted summary judgment in favor of the defendants based on expiration of the statute of limitations.
The Superior Court affirmed, holding that as early as July of 2009 Nicolaou should have known as a matter of law that she suffered from Lyme disease. That conclusion was based on the MRI test which had indicated that Nicolaou suffered from either MS or Lyme disease, the nurse's opinion, the availability of an advanced test that would provide a definitive answer and her postponed decision to take it. We reversed, holding that the Superior Court erred by isolating those facts indicating a diagnosis of Lyme disease from the entirety of her history of seeking a diagnosis and appropriate treatment. The Superior Court overlooked the constellation of contradictory facts; namely, everything that Nicolaou did, learned, and was told by medical professionals during the entire history of her efforts to treat her symptoms. Nicolaou, 195 A.3d at 894. We cautioned that "courts may not view facts in a vacuum when determining whether a plaintiff has exercised the requisite diligence as a matter of law[.]" Id.
Nicolaou did not announce any new principle of law. The plaintiff's cause of action accrued when she knew or should have known that Lyme disease was not treated as a result of repeated misdiagnosis by her health care providers. Given the lengthy history of attempted contradictory diagnosis and treatment, the date of accrual could not be determined as matter of law by the court and a jury would decide when she knew of an injury redressable by a lawsuit. The Superior Court's determination that Nicolaou overruled/modified decades of settled law on the accrual of causes of action and the running of the period of the statute of limitations was clearly erroneous.
Id. at 816-17 (citation and footnotes omitted, emphasis added).
Id. at 545, 547.
Meehan, 870 A.2d at 921.
Both Meehan's analysis and today's decision embracing it plainly conflict with our holding in Nicolaou. Meehan's rationale fails to account for the situation in which a plaintiff is aware of her injury but unaware of the defendant's connection to it. Yet the discovery rule, as this Court has explained it, should assist such plaintiffs. See Fine v. Checcio, 870 A.2d 850, 858 (Pa. 2005) ("The discovery rule originated in cases in which the injury or its cause was neither known nor reasonably knowable."); id. ("As the discovery rule has developed, the salient point giving rise to its application is the inability of the injured, despite the exercise of reasonable diligence, to know that he is injured and by what cause."); see also In re Risperdal Litig., 223 A.3d 633, 640 (Pa. 2019) ("The discovery rule will toll the applicable statute until a plaintiff could reasonably discover the cause of his action, including in circumstances where the connection between the injury and the conduct of another are not readily apparent.").
The underlying rationale of Meehan is that victims of sexual abuse necessarily are "on notice" that they may have a cause of action against their abuser, thus distinguishing these cases from those involving retained surgical sponges or subterranean-coal theft. But Meehan's rationale does not fit with Rice's specific claims against the Diocese. Rice is not arguing she was unaware that Fr. Bodziak abused her. Her contention is that, despite her own reasonable diligence, she did not and could not discover that the Diocese: (1) committed fraud by assigning her abuser to serve as her pastor despite his history of molesting young girls; and (2) engaged in a decades-long cover up to protect its own reputation.
The Majority's conclusion that Rice failed to exercise reasonable diligence in investigating the Diocese's role in her attack is based on nothing more than the fact that Rice knew that she was assaulted on church property by a priest employed by the Diocese. See Majority Opinion at 20-21. This analysis dramatically oversimplifies the reasonable diligence inquiry. As we explained in Nicolaou, "courts may not view facts in a vacuum when determining whether a plaintiff has exercised the requisite diligence as a matter of law, but must consider what a reasonable person would have known had he or she been confronted with the same circumstances that [the plaintiff] faced at the time." Nicolaou, 195 A.3d at 894. Furthermore, "the objective reasonable diligence standard is 'sufficiently flexible . . . to take into account the differences between persons and their capacity to meet certain situations and the circumstances confronting them at the time in question.'" Id. at 893 (quoting Fine, 870 A.2d at 858).