ARLINGTON (VA)
Bloomberg Law
February 12, 2021
By Alex Wolf
– Bankruptcy courts must reckon with state-law claim window
– Clergy sex abuse victims’ options vary depending on location
New York-based Roman Catholic dioceses that filed Chapter 11 to address child sex abuse lawsuits are fueling tensions by asking bankruptcy courts for a victims’ claim filing window that’s shorter than what survivors were given under a recently enacted state law.
New York’s Child Victims Act, signed into law by Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) in 2019, has spurred a flood of abuse lawsuits against the church and other organizations. Victims have filed more than 4,800 lawsuits against alleged abusers and institutions that harbored or concealed them, state court records show.
Four of New York’s eight local dioceses—Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo, and Long Island’s Rockville Centre—have filed Chapter 11, allowing them to ease the burden of litigation by consolidating victims’ lawsuits against them and negotiating with claimants as a single class.
That means child sex abuse victims with claims against those dioceses could face a filing window shorter than the state law intended. Dealing with shortened deadlines could cause stress for victims and suppress their legal rights in emotionally charged, controversial cases, victims’ proponents say.
“It’s hard to put what happened to them in writing, sometimes for the first time,” said Ilan Scharf of Pachulski Stang Ziehl & Jones, an attorney representing claimants in the Rochester Diocese case.
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