PORTLAND — The Maine Supreme Judicial Court on Tuesday ruled against an Augusta man who claimed the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland knew the priest who abused him as a child was a serial abuser.

The justices unanimously upheld the decision of Superior Court Justice Donald Marden. He granted summary judgment to the diocese last year.

William Picher, 39, claimed in his lawsuit, originally filed in 2007, that Raymond Melville, 70, of North Carolina, who left the ministry in 1997, sexually assaulted him between 1986 and 1988 when Picher was a student at St. Mary Catholic School in Augusta. Picher alleged that Melville’s supervisors at the Chancery in Portland knew the priest had sexually abused children previously but hid allegations from parishioners.

Picher’s attorney’s argued that the diocese had a duty to disclose to parishioners allegations that Melville had assaulted a 14-year-old in 1980 while in the seminary.

“The summary judgment record before us does not include any evidence, direct or circumstantial, that the diocese had knowledge, before or during the time when Picher was abused, that Melville was a sexaul abuser of minors,” the court wrote in its five-page decision. “The information of which the diocese may have been aware, which disclosed no prior sexual abuse by Melville, is not the type of material information that triggers a duty to disclose.”

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