L.A. Archdiocese to settle suits for $600 million
Settlement represents Church’s largest payout in sexual abuse scandal
 | Members of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests protest outside Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, seat of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, in September 2006. |
Damian Dovarganes / AP |
Attorneys for the archdiocese and the plaintiffs 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.
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 plaintiffs’ attorney Ray Boucher confirmed the sides were working on a deal but he would not discuss specifics. He said negotiations would continue through the weekend and said there were still many unresolved aspects.
Tod Tamberg, archdiocese spokesman, declined to comment on any settlement details.
“The archdiocese will be in court Monday morning,” he said.
Steven Sanchez, 47, was one of the plaintiffs set to go to trial Monday. He was expected to testify in the trial involving the late Rev. Clinton Hagenbach.
Sanchez, a financial adviser, said the past few months have been especially difficult because he had to repeat his story of abuse for depositions with his attorneys and archdiocese attorneys in preparation for trial.
“We’re 48 hours away from starting the trial and I’ve been spending a lot of time getting emotionally prepared to take them on, but I’m glad,” he said. “It’s been a long five years.”
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 Archdiocese of Boston agreed in 2003 to pay $84 million for 552 cases, roughly 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 people, 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.
Archdiocese to sell property
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.
However, more than 500 other lawsuits against the archdiocese had remained unresolved 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.
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.
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—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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