Archdiocese Working to Maintain Confidentiality of Abuse Survivors

By Brian T. Olszewski
Catholic Herald
January 16, 2015

http://catholicherald.org/news/local-news/13637-archdiocese-working-to-maintain-confidentiality-of-abuse-survivors

Attorneys for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee and “attorneys for certain clients,” i.e., Jeff Anderson and Associates, will be in the courtroom of Chief Judge Susan V. Kelley of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin Thursday, Jan. 15, as she hears a motion filed by Anderson to compel the archdiocese to produce unredacted documents and proof of claims forms relevant to the archdiocese’s latest motions for summary judgment.

“The unredacted documents and proof of claim forms contain the identities of witnesses with discoverable information relevant to certain claimants’ opposition to the archdiocese’s motions for summary judgment,” Anderson argued in the Jan. 8 motion. “As such, certain claimants respectfully request the court to compel the archdiocese to produce the unredacted documents and relevant proof of claim forms.”

Four days later, attorneys for the archdiocese responded, noting that it was following the orders of the court in not releasing documents with unredacted names.

The bar date (Feb. 1, 2012, by which victims could file claims) order “provides that confidential abuse survivor proofs of claim are confidential and that only certain ‘permitted parties’ can have access to the confidential abuse survivor proofs of claim,” the archdiocese’s attorneys wrote, noting that an individual claimant’s attorneys were not “permitted parties” and could only have access to the proofs for the claimants they represent.

The archdiocesan attorneys wrote that the confidentiality agreement, which all people with the confidential abuse survivor proofs of claim signed, “prohibits the debtor (archdiocese) from providing copies of the confidential abuse survivor proofs of claim to the Anderson firm.”