Action Alert: Important Milwaukee Archdiocese Bankruptcy Court Hearing

Snapwisconsin.com
February 20, 2013

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Action Alert: Important Milwaukee Archdiocese Bankruptcy Court Hearing Thursday February 21, 2:30 p.m.

WHERE: Milwaukee Federal Courthouse, 517 E. Wisconsin Avenue

An important hearing will be held in Federal Bankruptcy Court which could significantly determine the outcome of the 570 cases filed by victim/survivors. If you are able, I urge you to attend, along with family members and supporters.

I know it can be difficult to attend these hearings. For two years, lawyers from the archdiocese have done little else but attempt to disqualify, discredit and dismiss every case filed by victims. It makes a significant difference, however, if Judge Kelley sees survivors, our families, and our supporters in attendance. (There will be a sign language interpreter.) Judges and lawyers are human; they need to see the faces of those who are going to be directly affected by their seemingly abstract actions, arguments and decisions. Afterwards, I ask you to stay and join SNAP leaders for remarks to the press on the day’s activities in court and what the decisions and deliberations mean for survivors, the church, and our public mission to achieve institutional accountability, transparency and child safety.

On Thursday, to the best of my understanding, at least three key decisions will be made or at least significantly discussed:

–A motion by attorneys for victim/survivors asking the Bankruptcy Court to decide any insurance liability issues before issuing other decisions, such as claim objections. As you know, the archdiocese has spent two years trying to throw out the cases filed by survivors. Attorneys for victims will be asking the judge to decide the issue of insurance coverage before the archdiocese is allowed to continue dragging survivors through endless objections and possible depositions without having even tried to procure the necessary funding for restitution and relief at the end of this torturous and traumatic legal process.

–The archdiocese has filed a motion to suspend payments to certain attorneys involved in the litigation. They want to stop having to pay for attorneys representing victims (creditors), as is required when you file for bankruptcy (debtor has to pay legal fees), while (it appears) the archdiocese will continue to be paid by insurance companies to dismiss all victim/survivor cases. The archdiocese has spent nearly 10 million dollars on legal fees and court consultants without resolving one case. Now they are saying they have no more money to continue the bankruptcy proceedings they filed for in Federal Court (as is required under the law). Archdiocesan lawyers, however, would continue to be paid to fight victims cases.

–The archdiocese’s also has a motion requesting permission to pay outstanding funds to those survivors who entered into settlement agreements before it filed for bankruptcy in 2011. (This only applies to survivors who did not receive the full amount of their settlement and are due funds under their settlement agreement in the year 2013.) A number of survivors have filed cases in the court because they were fraudulently misled by the Archdiocese during these settlements.