New California Statute Expands Wrongful Death Damages For Survivors

As of January 1, 2022, Governor Gavin Newsom changed the wrongful death recovery for non-economic damages. California Code of Civil Procedure Section 337.34 limited damages in personal injury litigation to economic damages if a plaintiff died before judgement was entered. As of January 1, 2022, recovery for pain, suffering and disfigurement will be recoverable by the surviving heirs of the deceased. This would be a spouse and children. If no surviving spouse or children then possibly a decedent’s “putative spouse” (someone who had a good faith but mistaken belief that they were in a lawful marriage with the deceased), children of the decedent’s putative spouse, the deceased person’s stepchildren, the deceased person’s parents and if no parents then a minor who has lived with the decedent for 180 days and been financially dependent.

Since the change in the law the first lawsuit filed to test the new statute were the children of a deceased man who alleged he was molested as a child by a priest suing the Roman Catholic church under the new law allowing survivors to bring lawsuits for damages he could have sought for his suffering if he were still alive.

The lawsuit was filed in the Alameda County Superior Court against the Oakland Diocese for allegedly failing to prevent abuse by the former Rev. Stephen Kiesle that occurred between 1972 and 1975 at St Joseph’s Parish in Pinole, 18 miles northeast of San Francisco.

Kiesle, 74, a convicted child molester, gained worldwide attention long after he left the priesthood in 1987. Although being convicted of child molestation Pope Benedict XVI resisted, pleas to defrock Kiesle. Bartko, a longtime University of Oregon athletic department administrator, said Kiesle had molested him and his best friend during sleepovers at the church rectory when he was a boy.

The statute of limitations was opened to all child sexual molestation claims until January 1, 2023, allowing Bartko’s heirs to pursue the litigation. It will be a case closely watched due to the long time having passed since the molestations, the death of Bartko, and the new damages recoverable by his children. A definite case with numerous firsts.