A Roman Catholic diocese in Lengthy Island, New York, introduced a brand new chapter settlement on Thursday that will pay greater than $323m to about 530 intercourse abuse survivors who alleged they had been abused by clergymen after they had been kids.
The diocese of Rockville Centre, which serves about 1.2 million Catholics in Nassau and Suffolk counties, stated earlier this yr that it didn’t assume a chapter settlement could be attainable after abuse survivors rejected the diocese’s earlier $200m settlement supply.
US chapter decide Martin Glenn in Manhattan, who’s overseeing the case, stated the deal represented “monumental progress” after the chapter got here “inside a hair’s breadth” of failure.
Rockville Centre will contribute $234.8m to a settlement fund, with 4 insurers contributing $85.3m. The settlement will even obtain funding from one other insurer that’s being liquidated in a separate insolvency continuing and from attorneys representing abuse survivors.
Diocese spokesperson Eric Fasano stated the settlement would guarantee “the equitable compensation of survivors of abuse whereas permitting the church to proceed her important mission”.
The diocese filed for chapter 11 chapter in New York in October 2020, citing the price of lawsuits filed by childhood victims of clergy sexual abuse.
Greater than two dozen Catholic dioceses have filed for chapter in recent times, after New York and different states enacted legal guidelines that quickly enabled victims of kid sexual abuse to file lawsuits over decades-old crimes.
Thursday’s settlement may present a brand new path ahead for dozens of Catholic dioceses which have filed for chapter to deal with intercourse abuse claims.
As an illustration, the archdiocese of New Orleans just lately proposed that it and its associates settle the chapter it filed in Might 2020 for simply $62.5m, with its insurers contributing nothing. About 500 abuse claimants in that case have counter-proposed that the church and its associates accept about $217m, with insurers then contributing roughly one other $800m.
Dioceses had beforehand relied on chapter courts’ capability to grant sweeping authorized protections to non-bankrupt entities that contributed to settlement funds, a apply that the US supreme court docket shot down this yr.
That ruling, within the chapter of OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma, pressured the bankrupt dioceses to give you new methods to incentivize settlement contributions from insurers and parishes, which in earlier Catholic bankruptcies had contributed funds to dioceses’ settlement plans to finish their publicity to intercourse abuse lawsuits.
Rockville Centre solved that drawback by first agreeing to have all of its parishes file for chapter, the place they may acquire authorized protections in alternate for subjecting their belongings and liabilities to court docket oversight, the diocese’s legal professional Corinne Ball stated in court docket. The insurers then agreed to purchase again their insurance policies from the diocese and parishes, which ends their accountability for overlaying the intercourse abuse claims.
Guardian workers contributed reporting
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