An Arizona judge has granted a motion by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for summary judgment and dismissed a negligence complaint against the church in a child sex abuse case. The lawsuit, filed in 2021, accused the church and local church leaders of negligence and civil conspiracy in relation to a child sexual abuse case involving a father abusing his two daughters over several years. In the ruling issued Friday, the Cochise County Superior Court found that “Church Defendants were not required under the Mandatory Reporting Statue to report the abuse of Jane Doe I by her father because their knowledge of the abuse came from confidential communications which fall within the clergy-penitent exception in the Mandatory Reporting Statute.”