Five women working for the Duggar's family church organization claim sexual abuse and harassment by staff members and managers.
It has been more than two months after five women who worked for the Duggar family's church organization have filed a lawsuit against the church for sexual abuse, sexual harassment and inappropriate touching. But after waiting for a long time for results, the group was shocked to find that a judge has dismissed their case. The alleged victims vowed to refile, a report from Radar Online stated.
It was in October when Radar Online reported that five former employees of the Institute in Basic Life Principles sued the ministry as well as six of its managers. One of these directors is Gil Bates, patriarch of the Bates family in the show "Bringing Up Bates". The alleged victims are Gretchen Wilkinson, Charis Barker, Rachel Lees, Rachel Frost and Jane Doe. Their case was dismissed for the following reason: "failing to report known allegations of sexual abuse and sexual harassment... to the appropriate law enforcement agencies."
According to Radar Online reports, the defendants have filed a motion to dismiss the suit and claimed that the plaintiffs failed to cite concrete examples of abuse in the initial documents that they filed.
The defendant argued in an Illinois' DuPage County Circuit Court that. "Plaintiffs never provide the most basic, if any, facts about the alleged misconduct."
The defendants claimed that the women worked in the church more than 15 years ago which was before any of the directors that were part of the complaint had accepted their positions in the ministry.
But rather than respond to the motion, the victims agreed to file an amended complaint. The deadline to refile is up to January 6 while a hearing will be scheduled a week after.
Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar are close friends to Institute in Basic Life Principles founder Bill Gothard. It has been found that this is not the first time that a particular complaint was filed. Gothard, 80 years of age, resigned from the ministry early 2014 after more than 35 young women and teens accused him of alleged sexual harassment.