ROCHESTER, N.Y. (ChurchMilitant.com) – A New York diocese will likely pay more than $75 million to survivors of sexual abuse and diocesan insurers based on a settlement in the diocese of Rochester’s ongoing bankruptcy case.
The payouts will total $75.6 million with $55 million going to survivors of child sexual abuse and $20.6 million going to two of the dioceses’ insurers.
“This is a major step forward for these courageous survivors, but it’s not the end of the fight,” said attorney Steve Boyd.
The settlement comes in the wake of lawsuits filed by survivors of child sexual abuse under the New York Child Victims Act, which went into effect on August 14, 2019. Lawsuits piled in immediately, causing the Rochester diocese to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy several weeks later, on September 12, 2019.
The Child Victims Act in New York extended the statute of limitations for survivors of child sexual abuse. That extension allowed more time for such survivors in criminal and civil cases. In civil cases, the act permitted survivors to sue individuals and institutions involved in the abuse, swamping New York’s dioceses with claims.
The recent settlement in the diocese of Rochester’s bankruptcy case further permits survivors of child sex abuse to legally prosecute all the diocese’s insurers, which attorney Jeff Anderson called “far from a full and fair measure,” but one that “gets survivors some partial accountability for the heinous misdeeds of the diocese.”
“The real villains are the insurance companies that continue to deny and delay,” added Anderson. “We and the survivors are marching together to break the insurance hardball stand.”
The Rochester diocese was the first in New York to declare bankruptcy in the wake of the New York Child Victims Act. From then until now, four others joined Rochester, namely, the Buffalo, Syracuse and Rockville Centre dioceses in 2020 and the Albany diocese just this month.
The Rochester diocese settlement awaits the vote of nearly 500 child sexual abuse survivors and final approval from the bankruptcy court.
The diocese of Rochester, where the Ven. Fulton J. Sheen was once the local ordinary, covers 12 counties in Upstate New York and serves nearly 360,000 Catholics.
