By Pat Schneider
Capital Times
November 24, 2010
http://host.madison.com/ct/news/local/grassroots/article_48abdc46-f7dd-11df-9d66-001cc4c03286.html
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| Peter Isely and Barbara Blaine of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests advocated for church transparency at the Vatican earlier this year after a Milwaukee lawsuit implicated the priest who now is Pope Benedict XVI in practices that hid clergy sex abuse. |
Advocates for victims of clergy sex abuse say a Wisconsin appeals court decision that insurers need not cover damages caused by likely child molesters whom churches represented as risk-free should spur faith communities to demand greater accountability from church leaders.
Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, SNAP, argues that since dollars from the collection plate will pay for damages caused by abusive priests whom church officials knew were likely to offend, parishioners have an even stronger claim to a role in priest monitoring and child safety.
"Today's decision means that Catholics must more than ever demand accountability and transparency from the archdiocese," Peter Isely, Midwest coordinator for SNAP says in a statement released Tuesday. "They must insist on becoming full participants in how the church investigates, disciplines and fires priests who commit acts of sexual abuse and how church finances are collected, distributed, and audited."
SNAP has pressed church officials across the United States and at the Vatican to release personnel information about priests accused of molesting children with little success.
The Wisconsin court, in a consolidated appeal involving 13 lawsuits charging the Archdiocese of Milwaukee with negligent misrepresentations about priests accused of assaulting children, upheld lower court rulings that insurers were not responsible for damages because what the church is accused of doing is no "accident" eligible for coverage under liability insurance. Failing to use ordinary care to ferret out priests with a proclivity to offend and representing the priests as safe to be around children are voluntary acts. It doesn't matter whether the church was able to foresee the sexual abuse - it is the misrepresentation that the children would be safe that is the cause of injury, the court says.
Associated with the cases is Minnesota attorney Jeff Anderson, who developed the negligent misrepresentation, and a related "fraud," causes of action in a years-long effort overcome state Supreme Court decisions from the mid-1990s that made the church in Wisconsin uniquely immune to civil claims arising from clergy sexual abuse. The Supreme Court in 2007 recognized fraudulent misrepresentation as a cause of action in priest abuse cases. That court also said the statute of limitations would start counting when a plaintiff realized that its was the church's misrepresentations that were the cause of his injuries, opening the door to scores of decades-old complaints on which the clock had run out.
The Catholic Church has paid out millions of dollars in settlements to victims of sexual abuse - including in Wisconsin and in Madison -- a portion of it paid by insurers. The ruling on insurance liability promises to motivate the church to settle out of court rather than risk huge jury awards, but the pockets injured litigants can tap look now to be not as deep.
Evolving law in Wisconsin, as lawsuits in other states revealed patterns of abuse and denial, is eroding the protection from government intrusion once afforded to the church. This recent ruling protects insurers from damages caused by transgressing policy holders.
Will greater transparency by the church help make whole child victims of the past and protect children today from injury?
Contact: pschneider@madison.com
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