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	Verdict Is a Short-Term Victory for Diocese By Kevin O'Connor Rutland Herald December 9, 2007 http://www.rutlandherald.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071209/NEWS04/712090387 For Vermont's Catholic Church, the trial may be over, but the test has just begun. The statewide Roman Catholic Diocese spent much of the past two weeks in Burlington's Chittenden Superior Court defending itself against a civil lawsuit by James Turner, who charged the church with negligent supervision after the former Rev. Alfred Willis sexually abused him as a teenager 30 years ago. A jury ruled Tuesday for the plaintiff but, in a surprise twist, said his case was too old to prosecute under the state's statutes of limitations — in effect negating its seemingly small award of $15,000 in compensatory damages to the 47-year-old Northeast Kingdom native. Vermont's largest religious denomination still faces 25 other priest misconduct lawsuits. Church lawyer David Cleary of Rutland hopes last week's verdict will result in swift settlement of the remaining cases. "We hope this will give all the plaintiffs an opportunity to think about a resolution of the whole issue," Cleary says. But Jerome O'Neill, the Burlington attorney representing all the accusers, says his clients aren't about to accept a small token of money out of fear of similar rulings. "The diocese wants to settle these cases for 10 percent or less of what a jury would award," O'Neill says. "It wants to beat up these people as badly as it can and then try to use that as leverage to get cheap settlements. That's never going to happen. The conduct of the diocese as to Alfred Willis was minimal compared to what we can prove in other cases and the jury still found there was negligent supervision. That was one of the weakest cases we had." O'Neill appears ready to contest the Turner verdict in Vermont Supreme Court, noting that one of the jurors was a practicing Catholic whose parish is part of the diocese. "The low compensatory damages verdict in this case may be due to the fact that the diocese succeeded in keeping one of its parishioners on the jury — over our vigorous objections," O'Neill says. "We believe this alone is reason alone for the Supreme Court to overturn the damages verdict. We want a fair shot at damages in front of an impartial jury." O'Neill took Turner's lawsuit to trial because he believed the diocese wasn't offering his client enough to settle in comparison to past cases. A year and a half ago, the church paid another of O'Neill's clients a record $965,000 to drop a lawsuit involving another priest, the Rev. Edward Paquette. The diocese still faces — and most fears — 18 other cases involving Paquette. A judge's motion in the Turner trial shows why. In the case against Willis, who was a priest in Burlington, Montpelier and Milton before being defrocked in 1985, Judge Matthew Katz ruled because the plaintiff couldn't prove the church knew the priest had a prior history of molesting children, it shouldn't face expensive financial punishment through punitive damages. Such reasoning could prove problematic for the church in regard to Paquette, as the diocese has a file of letters showing it knew the priest had molested boys in two states when it assigned him to parishes in Rutland in 1972, Montpelier in 1974 and Burlington in 1976. Then again, the diocese found success last week in arguing that even if Turner's alleged abuse took place — the plaintiff says Willis performed oral sex on him when he was 16 in 1977 — his lawsuit wasn't filed, as required by state statutes, within six years after he realized the acts had caused personal harm. O'Neill also has contested that part of the jury's verdict. He says Turner didn't understand the effects of his abuse until news of a national child sex abuse scandal within the Catholic Church broke five years ago and therefore the diocese can't prove its expired statutes of limitations claim. But even if the Turner verdict stands, O'Neill has support for continuing his legal fight against the diocese. The national Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, for example, is tracking the Vermont cases on its Web site and issued a statement after last week's verdict. "Some may focus on the jury's decision on the statute of limitations," the group said. "However, the focus should be on church officials for being so heartless and vicious in exploiting this legal technicality for their own benefit, even in a case in which the abuse is undisputed." O'Neill says he isn't deterred by church lawyers who told the court they didn't dispute Turner's claims, only to call the plaintiff's ex-girlfriend to the witness stand and project his mental health reports on a courtroom wall. O'Neill told reporters after the verdict: "If you're the diocese and you drag out every piece of someone's psychological history, and you beat them up as they did this man on the witness stand, you may be able to be successful in the short term. In the longer term, I think it's a self-defeating policy." The diocese not only faces 18 lawsuits involving Paquette, but also seven cases involving seven other retired or deceased priests. Settling them all could be expensive, as the church has paid a total of more than $1.5 million to resolve just six other accusers' lawsuits in the past five years. (A judge also has ordered the diocese to pay Turner $112,450 in court costs after church lawyers sparked a mistrial in the first hearing of his case last June.) The diocese doesn't have insurance for priest misconduct, but says it held a comprehensive liability policy with the United States Fidelity and Guaranty Co. from 1972 to 1978. The church can't find its copy of the policy, however, so it has taken the insurer to court in hopes the company will unearth the paperwork and pay for the church's legal fees and settlement costs. The former insurer, known as USF&G, is now part of the St. Paul Travelers Companies of St. Paul, Minn. It has agreed to pay the diocese's legal fees for all pending cases whose allegations took place during the policy period. But the insurer says it shouldn't have to cover settlement costs if it can prove the church knew of past misconduct but continued to employ an offending priest. U.S. District Court in Burlington has yet to rule on the insurance case. In addition to those unresolved matters, Vermont Catholic leaders who once worked in Rhode Island were named in newly released Diocese of Providence files on the Rev. Roland Lepire, who the Vatican defrocked in 2004 after several men charged him with child sexual assault. The Providence (R.I.) Journal reported on its front page last Sunday: "On Feb. 6, 1979, Auxiliary Bishop Kenneth Angell sent a handwritten note to the Rev. Salvatore Matano, then-director of the diocese's priest personnel office, saying that 'for confidential reasons,' Lepire 'must be transferred at once.' 'He should not be reassigned in the Woonsocket area,' Angell wrote. 'Take this up with the PPB [Priest Personnel Board] on Thurs and arrange for a new assignment within a week (if possible). I will talk to the prospective pastor before the assignment is finalized.'" Three weeks later, the Journal reported, the abusing priest was assigned to another church. Angell, who became Vermont bishop in 1992, and Matano, who succeeded him in 2005, told the Journal they didn't remember the 1979 transfer memo. "Confidential reasons could have been anything," Matano was quoted as saying. "I didn't know then and I don't know now." Matano since has limited his comments on the advice of church lawyers. But taking a break at the Turner trial, he told a supporter of recent events: "It hasn't been easy." Contact Kevin O'Connor at kevin.oconnor@rutlandherald.com
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