State court to hear appeal in abuse case

The Montana Supreme Court will begin hearing arguments in an appeal of a $35 million judgment against the Jehovah’s Witness church.

Last October, a jury awarded Alexis Nunez $4 million in compensatory damages and $31 million in punitive damages. Nunez claimed that she was sexually abused by a member of the church as a child. The jury found that Watchtower New York, the Christian Congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses (CCJW), the Thompson Falls congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses and Nunez’s mother, Ivy McGowan-Castleberry, were negligent in the case.

Oral arguments will begin on Friday, Sept. 13, at the Northern Hotel in Billings during the State Bar of Montana’s annual meeting.

During the trial in September of 2018, witnesses detailed how the man accused of the abuse, Maximo Reyes, was removed from the Jehovah’s Witness congregation, but reinstated a year later. Nunez told the court that Reyes molested her repeatedly over a two-year period after his return to the church, starting when she was 8 years old. Nunez’s attorneys argued during the trial that the church had an obligation to report the abuse to authorities.

During the trial, representatives of the local and national Jehovah’s Witnesses organizations argued that a report of past sexual abuse in 2004 by Reyes’s stepchildren was kept confidential as an established church practice, and therefore the church was exempt to the Montana mandatory reporter law.

The jury was tasked with determining the percentage of negligence for each of the defendants. They determined that Watchtower was 80 percent responsible, CCJW 15 percent, the Thompson Falls congregation 4 percent, and Alexis’s mother 1 percent. The jury also determined that the national organizations acted in malice by not reporting the abuse, awarding the punitive damages. The $31 million in punitive damages will include $30 million from Watchtower and $1 million from CCJW.

Attorneys for the church filed their opening brief in the appeal earlier this year. The church argues that the district court was wrong to grant summary judgment on the victim’s negligence claim, that there was insufficient evidence of actual malice to justify the punitive damages, and that the punitive damages violate federal standards. The appeal alleges that the District Court erroneously determined that elders at CCJW violated Montana’s reporting statute and that the court “erroneously upheld the jury’s staggering award of $31 million in punitive damages – one of the largest in Montana history – despite zero evidence of ‘actual malice’ and notwithstanding Montana’s statutory cap on punitive damages (brushed aside as unconstitutional).” Attorneys also argue that the state mandatory reporting statute does not apply to institutions or organizations and that the defendants could not be liable for negligence.

Montana law states that an award for punitive damages may not exceed $10 million or 3% of a defendant’s net worth, whichever is less.

The three-day trial last October before District Court Judge James Manley included testimony from a representative of Watchtower and CCJW, the two victims, family members of the victims and an elder in the Thompson Falls congregation.