KANSAS CITY (MO)
Catholic World Report
Kansas City, Mo., Jul 3, 2014 / 05:22 pm (CNA).- Attorneys for the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph have questioned the legality of a $1 million abuse penalty against the diocese, criticizing “numerous factual inaccuracies” in an arbitrator’s ruling.
A June 20 motion from the diocese asks the circuit court of Jackson County, Mo., to “vacate, modify or correct” arbitrator Hollis Hanover’s decision to award the money to the plaintiffs from a 2008 legal settlement.
Hanover justified the decision on the ground that the diocese violated a prior legal agreement by not promptly reporting a priest who had taken pornographic photographs of young girls.
The arbitrator’s decision concerned an agreement reached after a 2008 $10 million settlement with 47 abuse victims or their family members, the Kansas City Star reports. As part of that settlement, the diocese’s head, Bishop Robert Finn, agreed to report suspected child abusers to law enforcement.
The arbitrator ruled that this agreement was violated in the diocese’s response to a sexually abusive priest in a separate legal case, that of Father Shawn Ratigan.
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