A record-breaking, US$100 million clergy sex abuse settlement between the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange and 87 plaintiffs brought some measure of relief to long-suffering families, but legal experts differed over whether the blockbuster deal would help resolve a huge backlog of cases in California.
The agreement, reached late Thursday and expected to be finalized as soon as tomorrow, surpasses the previous record of US$85 million awarded to 552 victims of clergy abuse in Boston last year, a participant in settlement negotiations said.
It wasn't clear how much of the settlement insurers would pay and how much the diocese would provide, but church officials said the deal would not bankrupt the diocese or require the closure of any of its 55 parishes.
Superior Court Judge Owen Lee Kwong has prohibited lawyers in the case from discussing the amount of the settlement.
Legal experts not involved in the case said the deal could be a blueprint for mediation underway in about 500 lawsuits still pending against the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. Another 300 cases are pending throughout the rest of the state.
"One signal it sends is this can be done. A second signal is if this can be done, at least some dioceses will come up with big bucks. Both of those things are important," said Richard Marcus, law professor at the Hastings College of Law at the University of California, San Francisco.
The significance of the settlement for dioceses outside of California is unclear. The amount of payouts in clergy abuse cases depends on many local factors, including the wealth of individual dioceses, whether its insurers will cover any of the costs, the extent of the molestation and whether local church officials took action to end the abuse.
Also, alleged victims in other states have not had the same opportunity as those in California to bring forward old claims. While some states extended the statute of limitations for bringing abuse claims in response to the abuse crisis, California was the only one that outright abolished the restriction, even though it was just for one year.
Plaintiffs in the Diocese of Orange cases were relieved to see the end of two years of grueling mediation. They thanked Bishop Tod Brown for his courage and willingness to resolve their cases.
"It's like a big weight lifted off my shoulders. Finally it's stopped, it's over," said Max Fisher, a 40-year-old plaintiff from Anaheim. "Last night, Bishop Brown came up to me personally and apologized, and that meant more to me than anything."
NO EXCUSES: Marcos said his administration was acting on voters’ demands, but an academic said the move was emotionally motivated after a poor midterm showing Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr yesterday sought the resignation of all his Cabinet secretaries, in a move seen as an attempt to reset the political agenda and assert his authority over the second half of his single six-year term. The order came after the president’s allies failed to win a majority of Senate seats contested in the 12 polls on Monday last week, leaving Marcos facing a divided political and legislative landscape that could thwart his attempts to have an ally succeed him in 2028. “He’s talking to the people, trying to salvage whatever political capital he has left. I think it’s
Polish presidential candidates offered different visions of Poland and its relations with Ukraine in a televised debate ahead of next week’s run-off, which remains on a knife-edge. During a head-to-head debate lasting two hours, centrist Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, from Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s governing pro-European coalition, faced the Eurosceptic historian Karol Nawrocki, backed by the right-wing populist Law and Justice party (PiS). The two candidates, who qualified for the second round after coming in the top two places in the first vote on Sunday last week, clashed over Poland’s relations with Ukraine, EU policy and the track records of their
UNSCHEDULED VISIT: ‘It’s a very bulky new neighbor, but it will soon go away,’ said Johan Helberg of the 135m container ship that run aground near his house A man in Norway awoke early on Thursday to discover a huge container ship had run aground a stone’s throw from his fjord-side house — and he had slept through the commotion. For an as-yet unknown reason, the 135m NCL Salten sailed up onto shore just meters from Johan Helberg’s house in a fjord near Trondheim in central Norway. Helberg only discovered the unexpected visitor when a panicked neighbor who had rung his doorbell repeatedly to no avail gave up and called him on the phone. “The doorbell rang at a time of day when I don’t like to open,” Helberg told television
‘A THREAT’: Guyanese President Irfan Ali called on Venezuela to follow international court rulings over the region, whose border Guyana says was ratified back in 1899 Misael Zapara said he would vote in Venezuela’s first elections yesterday for the territory of Essequibo, despite living more than 100km away from the oil-rich Guyana-administered region. Both countries lay claim to Essequibo, which makes up two-thirds of Guyana’s territory and is home to 125,000 of its 800,000 citizens. Guyana has administered the region for decades. The centuries-old dispute has intensified since ExxonMobil discovered massive offshore oil deposits a decade ago, giving Guyana the largest crude oil reserves per capita in the world. Venezuela would elect a governor, eight National Assembly deputies and regional councilors in a newly created constituency for the 160,000
RSS