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	Vermont Diocese to Appeal $8.7 Million Judgment Times Argus May 15, 2008 http://www.timesargus.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080515/THISJUSTIN/315454907 BURLINGTON, Vt. - Vermont's Roman Catholic Diocese is planning to appeal an $8.7 million judgment in a sex abuse trial that the bishop said the church would have trouble paying. Church Attorney Kaveh Shahi said the appeal would focus on two rulings in the trial that ended earlier this with the judgment of $950,000 in compensatory damages and $7.75 million in punitive damages, designed to punish the diocese for its actions. The appeal by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Burlington will argue Judge Matthew Katz should not have allowed punitive damages to be imposed and the judge was wrong to reject the argument that the statute of limitations didn't apply in the case, Shahi said. He said the actions that led to the jury verdict happened more than 30 years ago and church leadership has changed. "Everybody knows this is a very different diocese now than it was then," said Shahi. "This stuff isn't happening any more. It's two bishops and 30 years later." The case that was decided on Tuesday was filed by a former altar boy who said he was fondled from 40 to 100 times at a Burlington church by the Rev. Edward Paquette between 1976 and 1978. Now 40 and living in Colorado, the man sued the diocese in 2005 after learning it knew Paquette was a child molester when it hired him. Katz ruled the statute of limitations rule did not apply because the plaintiff could not have known key facts about the diocese's decision to hire Paquette until recently. After the jury's decision was announced, Bishop Salvatore Matano said the award would pose grave problems for the diocese. "I have to be very conscious that the verdict as it stands will have a very serious impact on a rural diocese, a small rural diocese," the bishop said. It's unclear how the diocese would pay the award.
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