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  Abuse Claimants Refile Class Action

The Associated Press, carried in Cinncinati Enquirer [Louisville KY]
October 24, 2005

LOUISVILLE - Several plaintiffs have again filed claims alleging they were sexually abused at Catholic orphanages and schools, in a second attempt to gain class-action status for their lawsuits.

The claims against the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Louisville and its Catholic Charities agency have been filed in the past week.

A judge in Louisville rejected a similar appeal from the plaintiffs for class-action status last month. The Jefferson Circuit Judge, Denise Clayton, ruled that the plaintiffs' claims did not fit the criteria for a class-action suit.

"The plaintiffs have claims of varying degrees against several different alleged perpetrators that span from the 1930s to the 1970s," Clayton wrote in the Sept. 28 ruling.

Attorneys have filed 47 new lawsuits since last week against the nuns and the archdiocese.

Elizabeth Mendel, attorney for the Sisters of Charity, a Nelson County-based order of nuns, said it makes sense to handle the cases separately. Both the archdiocese and the Sisters of Charity had opposed the original class-action bid.

"It reduces the burden on one judge, and because the cases are so individualized, they really need to be handled separately," she said.

William McMurry, the attorney representing most of the plaintiffs, criticized Clayton's decision. McMurry represented 243 plaintiffs who settled sexual abuse suits with the Archdiocese of Louisville for $25.7 million in 2003.

McMurry said Clayton's ruling would slow the cases down.

In each of the newly filed cases, McMurry also is seeking class-action status, hoping at least one of the other 12 judges now hearing the cases agrees.

McMurry criticized the archdiocese for its opposition to the new class-action attempt, noting that it agreed to a similar arrangement in earlier litigation. He noted that in that case, the plaintiffs were considered a single class even though their allegations also included different alleged abusers and different levels of abuse over several decades.

But while that case allowed only the 243 plaintiffs into the class, the type of class action McMurry is now seeking would be different, the Courier-Journal reported. It would allow an unknown number of other victims to come forward after a settlement.

That's similar to a format used in an agreement settling lawsuits by victims against the Diocese of Covington in Kentucky.

The archdiocese declined to comment because it is involved in the pending litigation, said spokeswoman Cecelia Price.

Mendel said she planned to file motions asking the judges to dismiss the cases because they were filed too long after the expiration of the statute of limitations.

The plaintiffs in the current lawsuits allege they were molested by a priest, several nuns and two lay people at Catholic orphanages and schools. The orphanages were St. Vincent in Louisville and St. Thomas in Anchorage, which later became the merged St. Thomas-St. Vincent Orphanage. The Sisters of Charity and Catholic Charities both had a role in staffing and operating the orphanages, and the lawsuits claim they knew about the alleged abuse and covered it up.

 
 

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