Deal Reported in Abuse Cases in Los Angeles

New York Times - July 15, 2007

by Laurie Goodstein


Lawyers for more than 500 people who say they were abused by Roman Catholic clergy members said last night that they had settled their lawsuits against the Archdiocese of Los Angeles for $660 million.

If approved, it will be by far the largest payout made by any single diocese since the clergy sexual abuse scandals first became public in Boston in 2002. It will dwarf the $85 million paid for 552 claims by the Archdiocese of Boston.

The lawyers in the Los Angeles cases said the settlement would be announced today, a day before jury selection was set to begin in the first of the cases. Any agreement would require a judge’s approval.

Tod M. Tamberg, director of media relations for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, said in an e-mail message that the only comment he could make was, “The archdiocese will be in court Monday at 9:30 a.m.”

A lawyer for the archdiocese did not return calls for comment.

Raymond P. Boucher, the lawyer who is representing 242 of the plaintiffs in the Los Angeles cases, confirmed in a telephone interview yesterday that a deal would be announced today for $660 million.

“Everything just fell into place,” Mr. Boucher said.

The settlement, which archdiocese officials have said would require the sale of church property, appeared to bring the drawn-out legal wrangling to a close.

“This will resolve all of the cases against the Archdiocese of Los Angeles,” said Katherine K. Freberg, an Irvine, Calif., lawyer who represents 109 plaintiffs. “It’s a global settlement.”

The Los Angeles cases have been particularly complex because they involve so many victims, multiple insurance companies, many Catholic religious orders whose own priests and brothers stand accused, and a prominent archbishop, Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, who has cast himself as an ally of victims but has been accused by them of intransigence.

Many dioceses in California have been hit by large numbers of lawsuits because the state passed a law in 2002 that opened a one-year window for cases to be filed without regard to the statute of limitations.

Steven Sanchez, a 47-year old financial adviser who is one of the plaintiffs in the case set to begin on Monday, said he had been girding himself to testify about the abuse he suffered when he was 9 or 10 years old, and he said he wanted to see church officials called to account in a courtroom.

Asked before the settlement was disclosed what he would do with any money he might receive, Mr. Sanchez said simply, “Where can you take that check and cash it that will make you 10 years old again?”

Cardinal Mahony announced in May that, to raise money for a settlement, the archdiocese would sell its administrative building on Wilshire Boulevard and might sell about 50 other church properties that were not being used by parishes or schools.

Mr. Boucher’s co-counsel, Laurence E. Drivon, said, “The primary motivation for the archdiocese to settle is that it is substantially likely that if they don’t resolve these cases they’re going to get hit” for much more than the settlement amount.

The Associated Press was the first news organization to report on Saturday that the archdiocese had agreed to a settlement.

Cardinal Mahony had been expected to be called to testify in the case that was set to begin on Monday, involving what the archdiocese knew about two decades of alleged abuse by one priest — the Rev. Clinton Hagenbach, who died in 1987. Cardinal Mahony became archbishop of Los Angeles in 1985.

The trial scheduled for Monday is only one of more than a dozen that had been set to start between now and January.

A settlement would require the archdiocese to make public its confidential files that could shed light on which church officials knew of the abuse accusations, and when they knew, Mr. Boucher said. Many of the accused priests had multiple victims because they were moved by their superiors from one parish to another when accusations arose.

Mary Grant, 44, is an abuse victim whose case was settled by the Diocese of Orange, in California, and is a plaintiff in the Los Angeles cases. Ms. Grant is Western regional director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, and counsels other victims. Earlier yesterday, she said any settlement in Los Angeles would be “a bitter release.”

“We understand there are survivors who are desperately in need of medical care, therapy,” she said. “They may not be able to go through a trial. But on the other hand, there are many survivors really who’ve wanted their day in court.”

She added: “It’s been a long, hard five-year battle for survivors in Los Angeles. So I think that probably a sense of temporary relief that may come from it.”

The Los Angeles Archdiocese, its insurers and several Roman Catholic religious orders, including the Carmelites, the Franciscans and the Jesuits, have already paid a total of $114 million in several separate agreements, to settle 86 claims.

Lawsuits over sexual abuse have already cost the Roman Catholic church in the United States more than $1.5 billion. Each diocese must handle the costs on its own, with no assistance from the Vatican.

Settlements are far more common, and victims in California have consistently won some of the largest payouts. In California, the Diocese of Orange paid $100 million for 90 abuse claims in 2004 and the Diocese of Oakland paid $56 million to 56 people in 2005. The Diocese of Covington, in Kentucky, paid about $85 million to about 350 people.

Five dioceses have filed for bankruptcy protection: San Diego; Davenport, Iowa; Portland, Ore.; Spokane, Wash.; and Tucson.

David Clohessy, national director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said of the settlement: “They should feel incredibly proud, and Catholics should be very grateful to them. Without their courage, dozens of predators would still be unknown and maybe working in parishes today, and we would know absolutely nothing about who covered up these crimes.”

Mr. Clohessy said, however, “We don’t know as much as we would have if some of these cases had gone to trial.”

Michael Parrish contributed reporting from Los Angeles.


http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/15/us/15abuse.html