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Archdiocese of Milwaukee plan would pay more sexual abuse victims

By Annysa Johnson
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
August 25, 2015

http://www.jsonline.com/news/religion/archdiocese-of-milwaukee-plan-would-pay-more-sexual-abuse-victims-b99562598z1-322771141.html


The Archdiocese of Milwaukee would compensate more sexual abuse victims than it originally stated as part of a $21 million settlement announced earlier this month, under the reorganization plan it filed Monday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court.

Members of the bankruptcy creditors committee raised concerns about the archdiocese's announcement, saying it had excluded 72 survivors they believed were to be compensated when they agreed to the settlement in July. Thirty-three of those would now be eligible for compensation, according to the revised plan.

"We're much closer to where we thought it was going to be," said Charles Linneman, who chairs the creditors committee, which is made up of abuse victims but represents all creditors in the case.

"The archdiocese has worked with us in the last two weeks, and a lot more claims have moved to a higher class," he said. "And there's more to come that we are still working on."

Jerry Topczewski, chief of staff for Archbishop Jerome Listecki, said in an email that the church is continuing to work with survivors' attorneys to address questions regarding the treatment of their claims "and will continue to do so until the plan is confirmed."

Topczewski said the plan will allow the bankruptcy to move forward and the archdiocese to "turn the page on this sad chapter" in its history.

The settlement agreement is a significant component of the reorganization plan, which paves the way for the archdiocese to emerge from its nearly 5-year-old bankruptcy. The plan must still be voted on by creditors and approved by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Susan V. Kelley. She has scheduled a confirmation hearing to begin Nov. 9.

Abuse victims unhappy with the reorganization plan could still raise concerns about its fairness and feasibility. To prove that a plan is not in their best interest, victims would have to show that they would get more under a liquidation, according to bankruptcy experts.

In its original announcement, the archdiocese said it would compensate 330 victims of childhood sexual abuse — of the estimated 570 people who filed claims in the bankruptcy — with individual amounts to be determined in a claims review process.

An additional 92 claimants, it said, would fall into what's known as a "convenience class," meaning they could accept a $2,000 payment or try to convince Kelley that they should be in the larger pool of compensated victims. And 157 claimants would receive no financial payment, it said.

The number of uncompensated claims appears to have dropped to 124, with the majority of the 33 moving to the convenience class.

Among those who would now be eligible for compensation are at least five victims who had previously sued the church but whose suits had been dismissed for statute of limitations and other reasons; and at least 27 others who could not previously identify their perpetrators, according to Linneman.

Linneman said the archdiocese has been working with those victims to help them identify their abusers.

As of Monday, the 124 claims not eligible for compensation involved victims who had previously settled through mediation or litigation; those with duplicate claims; those involving abuse by priests not associated with the Milwaukee archdiocese; claims that do not involve sexual abuse of a minor; and those previously withdrawn.

Linneman and Michael Finnegan, whose St. Paul, Minn., firm represents most of the abuse claimants in the bankruptcy, issued a statement late Monday saying they expected the claims review process to continue.

They said a review process was always envisioned as part of the mediation. But Finnegan said it was intended to capture just a few, inadvertently misclassified claims, not the significant number disputed by victims since the archdiocese announced its settlement.

The archdiocese settlement announcement did not suggest that the numbers of claims to be compensated were estimates.

Monday's reorganization represents a dramatic increases in both the financial settlement and number of victims who would have been compensated under the original plan proposed by the archdiocese in February 2014.

That plan called for the archdiocese to set aside less than $4 million to compensate about 128 victims, of diocesan priests only. The revised plan also compensates victims of certain religious order priests and nuns and lay employees — a class of perpetrators the archdiocese had long held were not its responsibility.

The archdiocese said that the revised plan would be financed with $16 million from its $70 million cemetery trust; $11 million from its insurance carriers; and $2.4 million from two funds it maintains for continuing education of priests, and orphans and other welfare needs.

 

Contact: anjohnson@journalsentinel.com




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