L.A. Archdiocese to Pay $600M for Claims
From the MSNBC website, 7.14.2007.
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 MSNBC.com |
Archdiocese to pay $600M for claims
Settlement represents Church’s largest payout in sexual abuse scandal
BREAKING NEWS
The Associated Press
Updated: 12:36 p.m. MT July 14, 2007
LOS ANGELES – The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles will settle its clergy abuse cases for at least $600 million, by far the largest payout in the church’s sexual abuse scandal, The Associated Press learned Saturday.
Attorneys for the archdiocese and alleged victims are expected to announce the deal Monday, the day the first of more than 500 clergy abuse cases was scheduled for jury selection, according to two people with knowledge of the agreement. The sources spoke on condition of anonymity because the settlement had not been made public.
The archdiocese and its insurers will pay between $600 million and $650 million to about 500 plaintiffs—an average of $1.2 million to $1.3 million per person. The settlement also calls for the release of confidential priest personnel files after review by a judge assigned to oversee the litigation, the sources said.
It wasn’t immediately clear how the payout would be split among the insurers, the archdiocese and several Roman Catholic religious orders. A judge must sign off on the agreement, and final details were being ironed out.
Lead plaintiff’s attorney Ray Boucher said negotiations would continue through the weekend and said there were still many unresolved aspects.
Tod Tamberg, an archdiocese spokesman, did not immediately return a call for comment.
A record settlement
The settlement would be the largest ever by a Roman Catholic archdiocese since the clergy sexual abuse scandal erupted in Boston in 2002.
Among the largest total payouts was $100 million in 2004 by the Diocese of Orange, Calif., to settle 90 claims. The Diocese of Boston agreed in 2003 to pay $84 million for 552 cases, the same figure the Diocese of Covington, Ky., agreed last year to pay to settle about 360 claims. Facing a flood of abuse claims, five dioceses—Tucson, Ariz.; Spokane, Wash.; Portland, Ore.; Davenport, Iowa, and San Diego—sought bankruptcy protection.
Last month, the Archdiocese of Portland agreed to pay about $52 million to 175 victims, while setting aside another $20 million for anyone who comes forward in the future.
The Diocese of Spokane, Wash., also recently emerged from bankruptcy protection after agreeing to pay $48 million to settle about 150 claims.
The Los Angeles archdiocese, its insurers and various Roman Catholic orders have paid more than $114 million to settle 86 claims so far.
The largest of those came in December, when the archdiocese reached a $60 million settlement with 45 people whose claims dated from before the mid-1950s and after 1987 — periods when it had little or no sexual abuse insurance. Several religious orders in California have also reached multimillion dollar settlements in recent months, including the Carmelites, the Franciscans and the Jesuits.
The resolution of more than 500 other lawsuits against the archdiocese, however, had remained elusive despite years of legal wrangling. Most of the outstanding lawsuits were generated by a 2002 state law that revoked for one year the statute of limitations for reporting sexual abuse.
Archdiocese to sell property
Cardinal Roger Mahony recently told parishioners in an open letter that the archdiocese was selling its high-rise administrative building and considering the sale of about 50 other nonessential church properties to raise funds for a settlement.
Still, church attorneys had been preparing for 15 trials involving 172 people, with jury selection in the first case to begin Monday.
A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge overseeing the cases recently ruled that Mahony could be called to testify in the second trial on schedule, and attorneys for plaintiffs wanted to call him in many more.
The same judge also cleared the way for four people to seek punitive damages from the archdiocese—something that could have opened the church to tens of millions of dollars in payouts if the ruling had been expanded to other cases.
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URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19762878/
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One Response to “L.A. Archdiocese to Pay $600M for Claims”
July 15, 2007 at 11:00 am
The expected settlements of hundreds of sexual abuse cases in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles will also do another very important thing.
It will make public some of the records of these sexual predators. Not all, not enough, but some at least.
Jeff Anderson along with all the lawyers out there on the west coast are to be congratulated for their hard work.
I hope they make the public release of those files part of any settlement agreement.
What did the hierarchy know, when did they know about it and what did they do, or not do in respose to it?
If truth be told, Mahony, his bishops and clerical staff are up to their pectoral crosses and birettas in compromise.
Unfortunately, by not going to trail, Mahony and his cohorts escape any possibility of real censure when, if fact, any number of them should be facing jail time for the collusion, conspiracy and cover up that they have been part of for so long.
I know that Roger Cardinal Mahony dislikes that description, but in comparision, the Mafia are just bit players on the world’s stage.
It is a sad, sad commentary on the state of the church today and it should never should have been so badly mishandled in the first place.
Sister M. Immaculata Dunn
maryidunn@yahoo.com
Archdiocese of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania