A Fulton County judge was wrong to toss a young woman’s complaint raising sexual abuse allegations against the Archdiocese of Atlanta on the ground that the plaintiff filed the case under a pseudonym, the Georgia Court of Appeals has ruled.
The plaintiff’s suit accuses the archdiocese of negligence for failing to stop a former music minister at Holy Cross Catholic Church from sexually abusing her when she was 14. Last year, Fulton State Court Judge Patsy Porter ruled that the suit’s filing under the pseudonym “Jane Doe” rendered the complaint invalid and that it was too late for the plaintiff to amend it to include her name.
