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	Record €440m to Settle LA Clergy Abuse Claims Evening Echo [Los Angeles CA] July 15, 2007 URL The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles will settle its clergy abuse cases for at least €440m, by far the largest payout in the church's sexual abuse scandal, it is reported. Lawyers for the archdiocese and the plaintiffs are expected to announce the deal tomorrow, the day the first of more than 500 clergy abuse cases is due for jury selection, according to two people with knowledge of the agreement. The sources spoke anonymously to The Associated Press news agency. The archdiocese and its insurers will pay €440m-€479m to about 500 plaintiffs v an average of €885,000-€960,000 per person. The settlement also called for the release of confidential priest personnel files after review by a judge assigned to oversee the litigation, the sources said. The settlements would push the total amount paid out by the US Roman Catholic Church since 1950 to more than €1.5bn with about a quarter of that coming from the Los Angeles archdiocese. It was not immediately clear how the payout would be split among the insurers, the archdiocese and several Roman Catholic religious orders. A judge must sign off on the agreement and final details were being ironed out. Lead plaintiffs' lawyer Ray Boucher confirmed the sides were working on a deal but would not discuss specifics. He said that negotiations would continue through the weekend and that there were still many unresolved aspects. Tod Tamberg, archdiocese spokesman, would not comment on any settlement details. "The archdiocese will be in court Monday morning," he said. The settlement would be the largest by a Roman Catholic archdiocese since the clergy sexual abuse scandal erupted in Boston in 2002. The largest payout so far has been by the Diocese of Orange, California, in 2004, for €74m. Facing a flood of abuse claims, five dioceses v Tucson, Arizona; Spokane, Washington; Portland, Oregon; Davenport, Iowa, and San Diego v sought bankruptcy protection. The Los Angeles archdiocese, its insurers and various Roman Catholic orders have paid more than -84m to settle 86 claims so far. Several religious orders in California have also reached multi-million-dollar settlements in recent months, including the Carmelites, the Franciscans and the Jesuits. But more than 500 other lawsuits against the archdiocese had remained unresolved despite years of legal wrangling. Most of the outstanding lawsuits were generated by a 2002 state law that revoked for one year the statute of limitations for reporting sexual abuse. Cardinal Roger Mahony recently told parishioners in an open letter that the archdiocese was selling its high-rise administrative building and considering the sale of about 50 other non-essential church properties to raise funds for a settlement.
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