A California man is considering whether to appeal a Jefferson Circuit Court judge’s decision to dismiss a lawsuit seeking damages from the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) for alleged sexual abused at an African mission boarding house in 1988.

Judge Irv Maze ruled that Sean Coppedge’s lawsuit — filed in December 2010 — came too late under Kentucky’s statute of limitations. The statute generally limits personal-injury lawsuits to within one year of the injury or — if the victim was a child at the time — within a year after they turn 18.

The suit alleged Coppedge was abused at age 14 at a mission boarding house in the present-day Democratic Republic of the Congo by an older teenager who church officials knew was a sexual predator. The allegations closely mirror what the Louisville-based denomination itself acknowledged in a report released in 2010.

Maze also ruled the lawsuit can’t proceed under an exception to the statute of limitations — in which a victim only discovers his or her injury years after the fact. Numerous Kentucky plaintiffs have filed lawsuits against Roman Catholic dioceses under that exception, alleging that they didn’t learn that church officials had covered up cases of sexual abuse by priests until years later.

Coppedge reported in court documents that he first learned in December 2005 — long after he turned 18 — that he was not alone in being victimized. He said that’s when he learned his assailant had previously abused another classmate and that church officials knew that and still returned the older teen to the hostel, the lawsuit said.

But even starting the statute-of-limitations clock in 2005, it was too late to sue by December 2010, Maze said.

“Sexual molestation of a child is a horrible wrong in our society, and the impact it has had on (Coppedge’s) life is undoubtedly severe,” Maze wrote in his March 15 ruling. “This ruling in no way seeks to diminish or minimize these effects; it is simply recognition that the cause of action was not brought in the time period required by statute.”

Ann Oldfather, a lawyer representing Coppedge, has filed a motion asking Maze to clarify his ruling. She said parts of it seemed to indicate Coppedge could have sued based on what he earned in 2005, while parts indicated he would have had to sue by 1993, or within a year after he became an adult. Coppedge is now 36.