KANSAS CITY (MO)
Insurance News Net
In sexual abuse lawsuit, neither the Kansas City diocese nor those suing it scored a clear win
By Judy L. Thomas, The Kansas City Star
McClatchy-Tribune Information Services
Oct. 19–Last week’s $10 million settlement cleared the deck of dozens of priest sexual abuse lawsuits in the Kansas City-St. Joseph Diocese.
But in the end, neither side could declare victory.
The plaintiffs won no massive payout or declaration from the jury that the diocese had failed miserably to protect children.
By the same count, the diocese wasn’t cleared of wrongdoing, nor was it shielded from future litigation.
“It may sound like it was a good financial deal for both sides. … But it’s also really sad,” said Nicholas Cafardi, a law professor at Duquesne University and a former general counsel for the Diocese of Pittsburgh. “The difficult thing is to get closure for a victim, and you hope that this brings closure because the injuries can be so horrific it takes a lifetime to get past them.”
The $9.95 million settlement was announced late Tuesday on the eve of jury deliberations in a trial of a lawsuit filed against the diocese by former altar boy Jon David Couzens. He accused the late Monsignor Thomas O’Brien of sexual abuse in the early 1980s at Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary parish in Independence. The diocese was told repeatedly that O’Brien was a danger to children, Couzens said, but failed to prevent the abuse. O’Brien died last fall at age 87.
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