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	Supreme Court Hears Church Appeal By Kevin O'connor Times Argus December 17, 2009 http://www.timesargus.com/article/20091217/NEWS02/912170344/1003/NEWS02 MONTPELIER — Vermont's Catholic Church is asking the state Supreme Court to overturn more than $12 million in child-sex verdicts. So why are justices responding with more questions than answers? Last December, a Chittenden Superior Court jury ruled the state's largest religious denomination should pay nearly $3.6 million for negligence in hiring and supervising a pedophile priest. A year later, church lawyers found themselves arguing the same case, this time as part of an appeal before the state's highest court. Five Supreme Court justices posed a flurry of questions Wednesday, just as they did last March when the statewide Roman Catholic Diocese appealed a record $8.7 million verdict in another lower court case. But attorneys searching for clues about any future rulings left scratching their heads. Several justices asked church counsel Kaveh Shahi why he offered his objections in broad brushstrokes. "You seem sort of scattershot without pointing us to specifics," said Justice John Dooley. But justices also questioned Jerome O'Neill, the lawyer for several former altar boys, when he criticized diocesan leaders for giving abusive priests another chance. "It's not a simple employee-employer relationship," said Justice Marilyn Skoglund. "If the bishop believes in redemption, does that factor in at all?" Responded O'Neill: "It doesn't put him in the position to molest children." Wednesday's hearing centered on the civil case of former altar boy David Navari, a 44-year-old Burlington native who received $192,500 in compensatory damages and $3.4 million in punitive damages in response to claims the former Rev. Edward Paquette fondled him on two occasions in 1977. Lawyers for the 118,000-member diocese offered the same argument for overturning that decision as they did last spring when appealing the record $8.7 million verdict involving a different plaintiff but the same priest. The church believes the juries shouldn't have awarded punitive damages or at least should have limited them to the same amount awarded in compensatory damages. It points to a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that reduced the punitive damages in the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill from an original $5 billion to the $500 million given in compensatory damages. "We believe there is a serious issue with the size of the award," Shahi said. The diocese also argues that the juries should have been asked to determine whether the statute of limitations on prosecuting the cases had passed. State law allows accusers to file lawsuits up to three or six years, depending on the situation, after they realize their abuse has caused personal harm and someone is culpable. The diocese says the former altar boys should have seen that back in their school days. But O'Neill, speaking for the plaintiffs, counters that his clients couldn't have understood the diocese's liability until after damaging personnel files came to light in 2002. "This information was kept totally confidential," O'Neill said. The Supreme Court has yet to issue a ruling on any of the big-money verdicts. But in October, the Supreme Court called for a retrial of the first of nearly 40 priest misconduct lawsuits against the church. In that case, justices overturned a 2007 lower court verdict that ordered the diocese to pay $15,000 to Northeast Kingdom native James Turner, who claimed the church failed to protect him from child sexual abuse by the former Rev. Alfred Willis. Lawyers for both the diocese, upset with a ruling of negligence, and the plaintiff, unhappy with the small award, appealed the decision. In a 30-page ruling, the state's highest court agreed with the diocese that the 2007 judge should have let the jury decide whether the case was too old to prosecute under Vermont's statutes of limitations. It also agreed with the plaintiff that one juror with strong diocesan ties shouldn't have been seated. "The only available remedy," it concluded, "is … a new trial." But lawyers on both sides aren't sure how that ruling will affect the other verdicts now on appeal. Contact: kevin.oconnor@rutlandherald.com
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