MILWAUKEE (WI)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests
WI–Milwaukee Archdiocese “settles” sex abuse bankruptcy: $15 million dollars for hundreds of victims, $30 million for a handful of lawyers
August 04, 2015
Statement by Peter Isely, SNAP Midwest Director (Milwaukee; but in Washington DC today CONTACT: 414.429.7259; available in Milwaukee today CONTACT: Mark Salmon, 414.712.2092; Monica Barrett 414.704.6074)
In a perverse and cynical parody of the famous biblical story of King Solomon, it has been announced today that the Archdiocese of Milwaukee has reached a monetary “settlement” with the Creditors Committee of the nearly five year old church sex abuse bankruptcy. It is exponentially the lowest bankruptcy compensation for victims in the United States.
(To see what the settlement should have looked like and the issues it should have addressed go to yesterday’s statement on the revised plan here).
One number dramatically demonstrates just how unjust this “settlement” is: at the end of the day, lawyers will be end up getting twice as much money than victims, approximately $30 million dollars for a handful of lawyers and $15 million dollars for hundreds of victims.
The entire settlement amount to victims is around $21 million dollars (after subtracting one third for their lawyers or $7 million dollars, that leaves $15 million dollars). Church and bankruptcy lawyers will be paid at least $23 million dollars. (That number includes at least $13 million that has already been paid to lawyer, $7.5 million more in the settlement, an estimated $2 million in litigation and lawyers’ fees for Cardinal Timothy Dolan’s Milwaukee “cemetery trust”.)
The average victim settlement for all the other US church bankruptcies when you subtract one third for attorney fees is $300,000. When you subtract the Milwaukee victims’ attorney fees, their average settlement amount (per “allowed” victim) is $44,000.
So why did the victims on the Creditors Committee agree to such a terrible settlement?
In the famous bible story, King Solomon is asked to judge between two woman who live in the same household, both claiming to be the mother of an infant boy. After much deliberation and anguish, he asks for a sword. There is only one fair solution, he says: the live son must be split in two, each woman receiving half of the child. Upon hearing this terrible verdict, the boy’s true mother cries out, “Oh Lord, give the baby to her, just don’t kill him!” The king, of course, declares this mother the true mother. Only a loving and true mother would rather surrender her baby to another than have him harmed.
The Creditors Committee, like Solomon, made the only ethical choice they could make: to not sacrifice those who would have been harmed if the archdiocese went back into court. These rape victims were forced, literally, into settling with the church because if they did not, as laughably low as the compensation amount is, hundreds of victims would have received no compensation whatsoever. Settle now before hundreds of victims get tossed by the archdiocese (and, as the church lawyer said in court last month, Archbishop Listecki intentionally “spends down” “all the money down”), or take the settlement. So, some victims choice to take less money for themselves so that other victims might get a little bit of help.
575 victims of rape, sexual assault or abuse by dozen of clergy over several decades filed cases into court because their archbishop and pastor, Jerome Listecki, publically urged them to for “healing and resolution”. They did so, knowing that by allowing the archdiocese to file for federal bankruptcy, the court was effectively removing their rights to file cases in state court, where depositions, documents and jury trials would have led to a very different outcome than today.
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