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Vocabulary > Justice > USA > Settlement
settle
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/22/business/us-settlement-reported-on-countrywide-lending.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/04/us/04priest.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/16/business/16goldman.html
settle a
class-action lawsuit
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/business/business-us-walmart-suit.html
settle a
class-action lawsuit
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/business/business-us-walmart-suit.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/12/us/12grace.html
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/health/2007-11-10-vioxx-plaintiffs_N.htm
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/health/
2007-11-10-vioxxsettlement-glance_N.htm
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-06-02-lee-settlement_x.htm
http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/washington/20060602wenholee/wenholee.pdf
settle a bias suit
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/22/business/us-settlement-reported-on-countrywide-lending.html
settlement
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/26/us/26jesuits.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/16/business/16goldman.html
reach an out-of-court settlement
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/19/business/19autos.html
reach a settlement with prosecutors
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-04-28-limbaugh_x.htm
deal
Catholic
Order Reaches $166 Million Settlement
With Sexual Abuse Victims
March 25,
2011
Reuters
By WILLIAM YARDLEY
SEATTLE — A
Roman Catholic religious order in the Northwest has agreed to pay $166 million
to more than 500 victims of sexual abuse, many of whom are American Indians and
Alaska Natives who were abused decades ago at Indian boarding schools and in
remote villages, lawyers for the plaintiffs said Friday.
The settlement, with the Oregon Province of the Society of Jesus, known as the
Northwest Jesuits, is the largest abuse settlement by far from a Catholic
religious order, as opposed to a diocese, and it is one of the largest abuse
settlements of any kind by the Catholic Church. The Jesuits are the church’s
largest religious order, and their focus is education. The Oregon Province
includes Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana and Alaska.
“There is a huge number of victims, in part because these Native American
communities were remote and vulnerable, and in part because of a policy by the
Jesuits, even though they deny it, of sending problem priests to these far-off
regions,” said Terry McKiernan of Bishopaccountability.org, a victims’ advocacy
group that tracks abuse cases.
The province released a statement saying it would not comment on the settlement
announced by the plaintiffs’ lawyers because it was involved in bankruptcy
litigation. The bankruptcy stems from previous abuse settlements, totaling about
$55 million, reached several years ago. A small group of victims and their
lawyers have been negotiating the current settlement for more than a year as
part of the province’s bankruptcy-ordered restructuring.
An insurer for the province is paying the bulk of the settlement, which still is
subject to approval by hundreds of other victims and by a federal judge.
John Allison, a lawyer based in Spokane, Wash., represented many clients who
were abused in the late 1960s and early 1970s while they were students at St.
Mary’s Mission in Omak, Wash., near the reservation of the Colville Confederated
Tribes, one of the largest reservations in the country. The Jesuits ran the St.
Mary’s school until the 1970s, when federal policies began to encourage more
Indian control. St. Mary’s is now closed, though its building stands beside a
new school.
Mr. Allison noted that English was not the native language for some of the
students at the time of the abuse. Some were 6 and 7 years old and came from
difficult family situations. Some were orphans. At the same time, many Jesuit
priests were not happy to have been assigned to such remote places.
“They let down a very vulnerable population,” Mr. Allison said.
Lawyers representing some of the victims initially suggested they would go after
assets of some of the region’s large Jesuit institutions, including Gonzaga
University and Seattle University. But the settlement does not involve them, and
their future vulnerability is unclear. Mr. Allison said some of the accused
priests, now in their 80s, live at Gonzaga under strict supervision.
Mr. Allison and another lawyer, Leander James, of Idaho, said the settlement
required the province to eventually apologize to the victims.
One of the plaintiffs, Dorothea Skalicky, was living on the Nez Perce Indian
Reservation in northern Idaho in the 1970s when she said she was abused by a
Jesuit priest who ran Sacred Heart Church, in Lapwai. Ms. Skalicky, now 42, said
that her family lived across from the church for several years, and that she was
abused from age 6 to 8.
“My family looked up to him,” Ms. Skalicky said of the priest, who is deceased.
“He was somebody high up that was respected by the community and my parents.”
The church, she said, “was supposed to be a safe place.”
Laurie Goodstein contributed reporting from New York.
Catholic Order Reaches $166 Million Settlement With Sexual
Abuse Victims, R, 25.3.2011,
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/26/us/26jesuits.html
Delaware
Diocese Settles With Victims of Abuse
February 3,
2011
The New York Times
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN
The Roman
Catholic Diocese of Wilmington, Del., agreed late Wednesday to settle for $77
million with 146 victims of sexual abuse by clergy members and to release
internal church documents about how the church hierarchy handled the allegations
of abuse.
The sticking point in the negotiations was not the money, but the documents,
according to those involved. The victims insisted that the diocese release the
documents uncensored, and make them publicly available on the Internet.
The committee and the diocese finally agreed that an arbitrator would settle
disagreements over redactions before making the documents public.
The Wilmington diocese filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2009 in
response to the abuse lawsuits, seeking a consolidated settlement. The monetary
award is less than the settlements in Los Angeles, San Diego, Orange, Calif.,
Boston and Covington, Ky., but includes more assurances for the victims that the
promised documents will actually be released.
Delaware and California passed laws in recent years that allowed people alleging
abuse to file lawsuits after the statute of limitations had expired. The
Catholic Church in several other states, including New York, has led the fight
against similar “window legislation.”
In Wilmington on Thursday, both sides said they were pleased with the agreement,
which included a list of nonmonetary provisions.
The diocese agreed to have priests sign a statement every five years affirming
that they are not aware of undisclosed abuse of minors. And the diocese will
place plaques in its schools saying that abuse of children “shall not be
tolerated.”
Matt Conaty, an abuse victim who served as co-chair of the creditors committee
that negotiated on behalf of those abused, said, “We were seeking some measure
of monetary justice, but that was secondary to the concrete child protection
measures and the transparency.”
Mr. Conaty, who is 41 and works in newspaper marketing, said of the two
principals accused of abuse at his old Catholic high school: “Would this plaque
have stopped them? I doubt it, because I think they were sick and I think they
were criminals. But there were teachers who knew there were red flags, and could
have done more.”
Delaware Diocese Settles With Victims of Abuse, NYT,
3.2.2011,
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/04/us/04priest.html
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