Clergy Abuse Pre-mediation Talks Begin

By Haidee V Eugenio
Pacific Daily News
October 25, 2017

http://www.guampdn.com/story/news/2017/10/25/clergy-abuse-pre-mediation-talks-begin/793424001/

U.S. District Court Senior Judge Alex Munson met Wednesday afternoon with most of the attorneys for plaintiffs and defendants in Guam's nearly 140 clergy sex abuse lawsuits, as parties pursue mediation to try to settle the cases.

The 2:45 p.m. meeting in federal court was behind closed doors, and the details discussed were confidential.

Munson serves as the discovery master in the planned mediation, which the parties said will happen around March 2018. That's much later than the original target of late October or early November, following preliminary talks in Honolulu in September.

Archbishop Anthony S. Apuron, through his attorney, Jacqueline Terlaje, took part in the pre-mediation meeting, as ordered Oct. 17 by Chief Judge Frances Tydingco-Gatewood.

Apuron has a pending motion to dismiss the lawsuits filed against him by former altar boys who accuse him of sexually abusing or raping them in Agat in the 1970s. The archbishop's attorney has said they won't consider any mediation until after the Vatican decides on Apuron's canonical trial.

Aside from Terlaje, others seen walking into the federal court building to meet with Munson were: Archdiocese of Agana counsel John Terlaje; attorney Delia Lujan Wolff, co-counsel for more than 90 cases filed in federal court; defendant Boy Scouts of America counsel Patrick Civille; and attorney Kevin Fowler, one of the attorneys representing plaintiffs who filed in the Superior Court of Guam.

The parties have yet to finalize the mediation protocols, which include a formal agreement with a paid mediator. Antonio Piazza, of the San Francisco-cased Mediated Negotiations, is the leading contender for the mediator post.

Among the unresolved issues among attorneys is how long it would take the defendants to start paying the plaintiffs after mediation, and whether the cases should be settled individually or as part of a single "global" settlement.