Court Agrees with Dismissal of Abuse Suit Versus Pittsburgh Diocese

The Superior Court has sided with a judge who dismissed a lawsuit against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh filed by the family of a man who committed suicide last year after the diocese stopped paying for his mental health treatments for alleged sexual abuse by a priest.

The appeals court agreed an Allegheny County judge was right to dismiss the lawsuit because 39-year-old Michael Unglo was suicidal before, during and after the church paid for his counseling. As a result, the courts agreed the church wasn’t negligent in Unglo’s death.

Unglo committed suicide in May 2010 at a Massachusetts facility.

Unglo claimed he was molested in the early 1980s while an altar boy in Etna, by a priest who was convicted of molesting another boy and later resigned. The priest was never charged with molesting Unglo.