Priest formerly in Yakima ordered to pay $5 million in abuse case

WASHINGTON
The Spokesman-Review

Kip Hill The Spokesman-Review

A federal judge in Spokane awarded an Oregon man $5 million in damages stemming from sexual abuse by a Catholic priest in Yakima more than 30 years ago.

The priest, Ernest Dale Calhoun, did not contest the allegations made by the man, who was identified only by his initials in court documents. The case was filed with the U.S. District Court for Eastern Washington in August 2014.

Both the Corporation of the Catholic Bishop of Yakima and the Beaumont Diocese in Texas where Calhoun served before arriving in Yakima in 1977 had previously been dismissed from the case. The Beaumont Diocese settled with the man for an undisclosed amount of money, and the Yakima diocese paid $75,000 to settle the case, according to local news accounts.

The victim’s attorney, Vito de la Cruz, of Yakima, called the award “the largest civil judgment entered against an individual priest in Central and Eastern Washington.”

“The judgment entered by Court is significant because of the amount, but more importantly, because it holds Calhoun accountable for decades of emotional trauma he inflicted on our client,” de la Cruz said in a statement.

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