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At deadline, Pittsburgh Diocese priest abuse fund at 232 claims and growing

By Peter Smith
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
September 30, 2019

https://www.post-gazette.com/news/faith-religion/2019/09/29/pittsburgh-diocese-deadline-catholic-sexual-abuse-fund-232-claims-and-growing/stories/201909290122


With Monday’s deadline for applying for compensation for sexual abuse by priests of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh, at least 232 people have filed claims, with many more potentially submitting last-minute claims.

Pittsburgh attorney Alan Perer, who represents many victims of abuse, said last week he had five staff members working on claims before the final deadline.

As of Friday, 40 claims had been approved for about $4.5 million and seven others were denied, according to Amy Weiss, a spokeswoman representing Kenneth Feinberg and Camille Biros, the Washington-based legal team overseeing the fund.

The diocese launched the fund early this year, with Sept. 30 set as the deadline, in the wake of a 2018 grand jury report into Pittsburgh’s and five other dioceses. It cited accusations against more than 90 Pittsburgh priests, and 300 statewide, dating back seven decades. Most of the abuse occurred before 1990, but many abuses were never previously known to the public. Six other Pennsylvania dioceses also created such funds. 

Amid growing calls for a window in the statute of limitations, allowing lawsuits over decades-old abuse, the Pittsburgh and other dioceses began offering the compensation funds as a way of settling claims out of court. Separately, numerous plaintiffs are filing claims seeking to avoid the problem of the statute of limitations by alleging the dioceses had ongoing patterns of fraud and conspiracy right up until their exposure by grand jury investigators.

 All this has happened while state lawmakers fought to a standstill over giving now-adult victims of childhood sexual abuse a legal “window” to sue.

Many victims lost that right under Pennsylvania law by the time they turned 20, while victim advocates say the dioceses have used the delay to limit their civil liability, aided in recent years by the Senate blocking House bills that sought to restore it.

Victim compensation funds in Philadelphia, Allentown and Scranton also will close to applications on Monday. The state Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing Wednesday, with testimony from victims of childhood sexual abuse, constitutional scholars and others. The timing is coincidental, Senate officials say.

The offers from the compensation funds require a victim to give up the right to sue later and average about $125,000, said Ben Andreozzi, a Harrisburg-based lawyer who represents dozens of victims of Catholic clergy.

Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati, R-Jefferson, who led the chamber’s opposition to changing the law, said dioceses have provided significant compensation to victims without making them relive their abuse in court or pay attorneys’ 30% fees.

“In my view, it’s been successful,” Mr. Scarnati said.

Mr. Scarnati argues that retroactively giving adult victims a window to sue is unconstitutional, short of changing the state constitution. Attorney General Josh Shapiro, whose office produced the grand jury report, maintains that a window is constitutional and the question, ultimately, would be up to Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court.

The Legislature has changed in significant ways since the Senate last blocked the House legislation last year.

A critical mass of senators might back legislation to restore the right to sue, but the House took a different tactic this year under a new majority leader, Rep. Bryan Cutler, R-Lancaster, who opposes a window.

In April, the House passed a measure to amend the state constitution to allow victims of childhood sexual abuse to sue, even if they’d turned Pennsylvania’s legal age limit, which is now 30.

Mr. Scarnati said he supports it. But amending the constitution couldn’t happen before 2021 and requires passage by voters in a statewide referendum.

The dioceses say the compensation funds are one of many ways they are trying to help victims who come forward, and that they have long since changed, now strictly referring new complaints to law enforcement.

The Feinberg firm, which has overseen the distribution of numerous other major funds nationwide over such things as the 9/11 attacks, mass shootings and the BP oil spill, has been handling the Pittsburgh claims.

The Pittsburgh diocese declined to issue a statement before the final accounting is in.

In a pastoral letter earlier this year, Bishop David Zubik “stated that final information about the Independent Reconciliation and Compensation Program will be released in January,” a diocesan statement said. “Until then, it is a work in progress and we will not be making interim statements.”

Contact: petersmith@post-gazette.com




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