The epicenter of the Roman Catholic sex-abuse scandal may be about to shift from Boston to Los Angeles, the largest archdiocese in the country.

Tuesday, a new California law takes effect that will lift the statute of limitations in certain molestation cases. This means that victims of priest sexual abuse from decades past can sue the Roman Catholic Church or other institutions in the state's civil courts - potentially opening a bigger chapter in the scandal and causing more damage to the Vatican.

At least 200 individual cases, which may be grouped before one or more judges, are slated to be filed Thursday. At least 100 more cases are in some stage of formal preparation.

The opening of the California floodgates will bring several new factors into play. On the one hand, California puts no limits on punitive damages - opening the church up to wider financial impact than in Massachusetts. On the other hand, the large Hispanic population in Los Angeles gives that archdiocese a cultural makeup that, experts say, could be less prone to filing lawsuits.

"The Boston pattern is not going to simply replicate itself, and that will make the California chapter important to watch," says the Rev. Richard John Neuhaus, a Jesuit priest based in New York City and editor of First Things Magazine. "We will see that different bishops have dealt with the same situation in various ways. It will be most interesting to see how things have been governed in the largest diocese by Cardinal Mahony."

Until now, victims of childhood sexual abuse could sue up until their 26th birthday or within three years of discovering that their emotional problems could be linked to a molestation. Following nationwide revelations of clergy wrongdoing, however, the California Legislature in July amended its statute of limitations to allow the older lawsuits. Sacramento legislators passed the legislation without a dissenting vote in either house.

"In the past, the legal system rewarded criminals," says Mary Grant, Los Angeles regional representative for SNAP, the nation's largest self-help group for survivors of clergy sexual abuse. "If they were able to silence their victims long enough, then they were free to continue abusing others. If enough come forward during this time, we could see the beginning of the end of that behavior."

The new law - which does not single out the Catholic Church but includes schools, companies, and children's groups - is expected to be challenged on constitutional grounds. Some experts say the law's retroactive nature is legally questionable because it is analogous to a poker dealer telling his players on the last round that "deuces are wild."

Others say the Legislature is free to change the law's limitation period whenever it wants.

"We modeled the language after another statute the state passed a few years ago giving victims of the Northridge earthquake more time to file damages," says Larry Drivon, the Stockton-based lawyer who wrote the law. Mr. Drivon's firm has worked on such cases for years, including suits against the Boy Scouts, Little League, and several religious institutions. "We didn't just fall off the turnip truck. We think this will stand."

Page: 1 | 2