New York Archdiocese close to settling sexual abuse claims for over US$800 million

Maya King and Jeffery C MaysNEW YORK – The Archdiocese of New York and plaintiffs’ lawyers were closing in on a settlement on Oct 23 in which the Church would pay more than US$800 million (S$1 billion) to settle claims from 1,300 people who said they had been sexually abused by its clergy members and lay leaders.The plaintiffs’ lawyers said that they had finalised the settlement with the archdiocese and that all of the plaintiffs had signed off on it.But Joseph Zwilling, a spokesperson for the archdiocese, said in an interview on the night of Oct 24 that the parties were still working to finalise the agreement.“We are not quite there yet,” he said.Terms of the settlement would call for each plaintiff to have the option of receiving a lump-sum payment of at least US$250,000, or a potentially larger payout after a review of the extent of the abuse each plaintiff has claimed, according to the plaintiffs’ lawyers.The proposal would end a multi-year saga that threatened to bankrupt the United States’ foremost Roman Catholic archdiocese.The terms of the proposed settlement required that all 1,300 plaintiffs accept it, and there were some holdouts, who argued that the proposal did not do enough to rectify the harms they had experienced. Progress was also stymied by the deaths of some plaintiffs.“Tonight, we were able to finalise the settlement with the Archdiocese,” Trusha Goffe, an attorney with Jeff Anderson & Associates, wrote on Oct 23 in an e-mail to the firm’s nearly 300 clients who say they were abused.“All of the survivors agreed to the revised deal. This means that the settlement you agreed to will move forward.”Lawyers for the plaintiffs said they had repeatedly warned their clients that if they did not accept the proposal, the archdiocese would most likely declare bankruptcy, reducing the size of any eventual payout and extending the length of the already years-long litigation.To appease the handful of plaintiffs who were resistant to the proposal, the lawyers said, the archdiocese negotiated with one of its insurers to increase the amount of money it would pay the holdouts.They would now receive a pot of US$20 million to be evenly distributed among them – an uncommon arrangement that hinged largely on the availability of insurance funds.“The survivors showed an amazing amount of perseverance and patience here,” said Paul Mones, a veteran lawyer whose Los Angeles-based firm represents 33 of the plaintiffs against the archdiocese.“After a lifetime of pain and struggle, they mustered the energy to push that final mile. And hopefully this deal will give them a degree of solace and healing.”The Archdiocese of New York, which includes Manhattan, the Bronx, Staten Island and a handful of Hudson Valley communities, would be the latest Catholic institution to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to settle claims of sexual abuse.In June, the Archdiocese of San Francisco agreed to pay US$395 million to settle claims from more than 530 people who said clergy members and lay leaders had abused them.In 2024, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles settled similar claims for more than US$1 billion – one of the largest sexual abuse settlements in church history.The agreement with the New York Archdiocese also requires it to publish on its website the names of the clergy members and lay leaders who were credibly accused of sexual abuse, and to keep that list updated with any future substantiated claims of abuse.The accusers and their lawyers said they thought these requirements would not only illuminate past abuses, but also help to prevent future ones. It is unclear what disclosures, if any, the archdiocese would have faced if it had declared bankruptcy.In her e-mail, Goffe said she would have more details about the settlement process in the next two weeks but wanted to emphasise “what an achievement” the agreement represents. NYTIMESThis article originally appeared in The New York Times.