NEW ORLEANS (LA)
WWL-TV [New Orleans LA]
August 8, 2025
By David Hammer
Coming up in October, hundreds of victims of childhood sexual abuse by clergy will get to vote to approve or reject a settlement with the Archdiocese of New Orleans.
But attorneys representing large groups of survivors say the deal is short and will advise clients to reject it.
NEW ORLEANS — Documents filed recently in the Archdiocese of New Orleans’ five-year bankruptcy case provide more clarity on how claims will be doled out to each victim if a proposed settlement is approved. Points will be assigned to each abuse claim based on the severity of the abuse and its impact on each victim’s life, but the records do not offer much clarity on how much actual money those points will be worth.
Claims that a Catholic church employee raped them will be worth twice as much money to abuse survivors as having a priest masturbate in front of them, four times more than if a cleric touched them under their clothes and seven times more than being shown pornography, according to details from a settlement disclosure statement filed last week and amended this week.
Coming up in October, hundreds of victims of childhood sexual abuse by clergy will get to vote to approve or reject a settlement with the Archdiocese of New Orleans worth between $180 million and $235 million.
Recent filings in the US Bankruptcy Court are bringing some of that process into focus as the church and proponents of the settlement are counting on “yes” votes from at least two-thirds of the voting survivors.
Many survivors say they are waiting to see what the formula means for their claim before deciding how they will vote. Attorneys representing nearly 200 survivors are already urging their clients to vote “no,” raising the real possibility that the church could be thrown out of bankruptcy with nothing to show for it after spending $50 million on legal fees alone.
The survivors’ committee that negotiated the settlement selected Richard Arsenault, a personal injury lawyer in Alexandria, as the abuse claims reviewer. He will consider the nature and impact of the abuse to award between zero and 100 points to each claim.
The settlement disclosure documents detail the point system: Rape is worth 75 points, oral and digital sex is 56 points, masturbation is 37 points, taking and publishing a video of abuse receives 20 points, touching under the clothes is 18 points, over the clothes is 10 points, nude images or pornography are worth 10 points, grooming counts for 5 points and sexually explicit statements with no physical touching receives 3 points.
Points can then be added for those who participated in criminal prosecution of the abuser, if they sued before the bankruptcy began, and if they led efforts on behalf of other survivors. More points can be awarded based on the impact the abuse had on the victim’s behavior, academic achievement, mental health and loss of faith and family relationships. Points can be reduced if the claimant was over 18 and consented to the sexual contact.
Survivors won’t know how much each point is worth until Arsenault is done assessing all claims. For example, if $200 million is available and Arsenault hands out 20,000 total points, each point would be worth $10,000. That would make a rape case worth $750,000 before any additions or subtractions.
A maximum score of 100 points would be worth $1 million, but that is only a theoretical example, and the value of each point won’t be known until all claims are reviewed.
The church and a committee negotiating on behalf of all eligible abuse survivors proposed their joint settlement plan in July. The church is in the process of selling affordable housing complexes known as Christopher Homes, and this week, the church disclosed that it has received eight bids for the property and will select the highest and best offer by Sept. 15. If it receives its high-end estimate of $55 million, the total settlement would be worth $235 million, so the average payout for the 660 claimants would exceed $350,000.
But if two-thirds of the voting survivors vote “no,” the case would almost certainly be thrown out of bankruptcy, giving survivors a chance to pursue individual lawsuits, with the prospect of collecting millions of dollars each.
John Lousteau, a survivor who filed a lawsuit in 2021 against a Catholic religious order that’s not part of the bankruptcy case, recently won a $2.4 million jury verdict. Although it’s separate from the bankruptcy case, the Lousteau verdict is viewed by many as a benchmark for what the average survivor could get if they’re willing to spend more years in court.
In recent financial disclosures, the archdiocese considers anyone who filed a claim before May 16, 2025, to have filed it timely, even though it had previously stated that 250 claims filed after March 2021 were filed too late. That appears to rebut arguments by some of the church’s creditors that as many as half of the abuse claims should be thrown out.
In addition to the bloc of survivors represented by Gisleson and other plaintiff attorneys urging “no” votes, other creditors recently joined in the criticism of the proposed settlement. A committee representing 430 commercial claims, investors who purchased bond debt from the church, and even the independent US bankruptcy trustee filed their own objections to the settlement plan.
Attorneys for the bondholders even accused the church of securities fraud after the archdiocese decided not to make scheduled interest payments. The bond trustees called the plan the church filed, explaining how it would pay its bond investors, “gobbledygook.” The commercial creditors said in a filing the proposed plan was “neither fair nor equitable” and wasn’t “proposed in good faith.”
The archdiocese is also trying to address concerns about its access to money to pay a settlement. It’s counting on funding, as much as $60 million, according to a liquidation analysis — from 147 affiliated parishes, schools, and charitable organizations, which plan to file quick, two-day bankruptcies to add their money to the settlement pot and protect themselves from facing their own sexual abuse lawsuits.
And there’s major uncertainty about the church’s insurance coverage. A large portion of the claims stem from abuse that happened between 1973 and 1989, when Travelers Insurance provided coverage to the church. Travelers has not agreed to settle with the church, so the settlement plan gives victims from that timeframe the option of taking their claims to court individually.
Beyond Travelers, the church is counting on $29 million from insurers that did agree to settle, but $21 million of that is contingent on SPARTA Insurance Co. making assurances in spite of financial difficulties. If SPARTA can’t pay, claimants abused between 1964 and 1973 would also have the option to sue separately.
Author: David Hammer / WWL Louisiana Investigator