The Chicago Blackhawks and the representatives for Kyle Beach and “John Doe 2” are scheduled to meet for lawsuit settlement mediation on December 15. Before that, the legal process continues and the Blackhawks will continue to do what they can to get Beach’s lawsuit against them thrown out.
According to TSN’s Rick Westhead, the representation for the team has filed a motion to dismiss Beach’s negligence case against the Blackhawks.
The Chicago Blackhawks have filed a motion to dismiss Kyle Beach's negligence lawsuit, arguing that the statute of limitations expired before the hockey player's case was filed in court.
Story from @rwesthead: https://t.co/WvSbWd2r1x pic.twitter.com/6YM1vp8E11
— TSN Hockey (@TSNHockey) December 2, 2021
In the report, Westhead says that the Blackhawks are claiming that the statute of limitations had run out on Beach’s ability to file the lawsuit since the two-year window had passed.
In its motion to dismiss Beach’s lawsuit, the team wrote that it has “committed to pursue a reasonable resolution of the issues raised by Mr. Beach as a moral imperative rather than a legal obligation.”
The Blackhawks argue that according to statute of limitations laws, an individual seeking damages for a personal injury has two years from the date of an injury to file a lawsuit. The only exception to that rule, the team says, is for victims of childhood sexual abuse.
Also within the report, the Blackhawks are claiming that Beach cannot say that he repressed the memory of the assault at the hands of former Blackhawks video coach Brad Aldrich since he knew he was assaulted in May of 2010, but didn’t report until nine years later after finding out Aldrich had been arrested for sexual assault in Michigan.
More from Westhead’s report:
Despite the passage of more than a decade since the alleged sexual assault and repeated instances in which he dealt with consequences from the incident, Mr. Beach argues that his claims are timely because he repressed memories relating to the sexual assault until July 2019, when his memories ‘were revived by learning that Aldrich had been arrested and sentenced in a subsequent sexual assault case,’” the team wrote.
Mr. Beach knew immediately in May 2010 that he had been assaulted; that the assault was wrongful; and that he had been harmed by it. He cannot toll the statute of limitations by claiming repressed memory.
I’ll go as far to say that, sure Beach did know he was assaulted in May of 2010, but so did John McDonough, so did Stan Bowman, so did Al MacIsaac, so did Joel Quenneville, and so did James Gary. While those men have been fired from there positions, this is still on the organization as a whole to make right.
The sides are still set to meet in settlement mediation on December 15.