Source: dailyjournal.com 10/16/24
The deal, subject to approval from all the plaintiffs, would provide compensation to 1,353 victims.
The Archdiocese of Los Angeles agreed Wednesday to pay $880 million to victims of clergy sexual abuse. With the $740 million paid to victims in 2007, the church has now agreed to pay a record $1.5 billion.
“It’s been a long time coming and a huge amount and work to get to this point. I’m convinced that the archdiocese has done everything they could to make this thing work and compensate clients. But it is a bittersweet day, as it always is,” said Raymond P. Boucher of Boucher LLP, one of the four plaintiffs’ liaison counsel.
The other liaison counsel are: Michael Reck of Jeff Anderson and Associates, Spencer Lucas of Panish Shea Ravipudi LLP, and Morgan A. Stewart from Manly, Stewart and Finaldi.
Kirk D. Dillman, a partner at McKool Smith, represented the church. He said Archbishop José H. Gomez wanted “most importantly to get victims closure and healing.”
“We determined the best way forward was with focused mediation with the plaintiffs’ liaison committee to share and be as transparent as we could about the finances of the archdiocese. And we did that.
“It was that dialog, I think, that convinced the plaintiffs we were not trying to get out on the cheap. We put cards on the table,” Dillman said.
Liaison counsel Lucas said the settlement was made more difficult by the fact that the church’s insurance was exhausted from the previous payouts to abuse victims.
“The difficulties were multifaceted. We were dealing with an individual defendant. Looking at investment accounts. Looking at all their assets. So that was a challenge. It took years of investigation and detailed analysis and turning over every stone,” Lucas said.
In 2007, the church agreed to pay $740 million to nearly 600 victims of abuse by clergy, teachers and other members of the Los Angeles archdiocese. In the latest round, 1,353 people claimed abuse by members of the archdiocese. The church has also agreed to undisclosed settlements with about 500 other plaintiffs.
Reck said the settlement will require public disclosure of any perpetrator files. “That’s noteworthy given that there was a lot more cases than there were in the other round. So, not all those [perpetrators] were known.”
Boucher said settlement talks had been going on for nearly two years but really started to come together in the past six to eight weeks. He said retired Superior Court Judge Daniel J. Buckley, now of Signature Resolution, “kept pushing to get this realized.”
He praised the Los Angeles archdiocese, which “did not take the cowardly road of filing for bankruptcy” like several other dioceses in California and in other states have done in recent months.
A settlement was done for the same reason in the city I where lived for many years for the same reason. A few years ago, the names of 8 priests who had died and who had sexually abused minors were released to the public. I was not surprised by one of the named priests because when I was a teenager he tried to groom me, but I recognized what he was trying to do at the time and I was able to avoid being abused and I made a point after that to never see or be in his presence again. Looking back I wish I had said something to someone to try to prevent someone else from being sexually abused, but the apparently per court documents and the settlement, the diocese knew and did nothing other than hide it and move him around. So even if I spoke up, nothing would have happened.
I wish I could say the same for one of my ex-brother in laws. While a teenager he was sexually abused by a priest. Because of the shame, he did not tell anyone. The family only found out when he wrote a letter to his parents before his suicide which happened within 8 years of the abuse.
I’m sure the Bishops prayed for guidance. Then they picked up the phone and asked , “ How much we gotta pay to shut them up.”
So there is an option to pay the victims and avoid prosecution and registration? How come the rest of us did not get that option? Sounds like discrimination to me. I thought we all had equal rights?