SD court upholds dismissal of school abuse lawsuit

PIERRE, S.D. (AP) – The South Dakota Supreme Court says a man who alleges he was sexually abused decades ago at an American Indian boarding school cannot continue his lawsuit against the religious organizations that ran the school.

The high court upheld a trial judge's decision to throw out the lawsuit because D.Z. Iron Wing waited too long to file it. South Dakota law requires such a lawsuit to be filed within three years of when a victim discovered or should have discovered an injury was caused by the abuse.

Iron Wing had argued that he only recently discovered how the alleged abuse had injured him.

But the Supreme Court says Iron Wing acknowledged that he never forgot the abuse or his hatred of the organizations that ran St. Paul's Indian School in Marty.