ALBANY (NY)
Times Union [Albany NY]
February 23, 2025
By Brendan J. Lyons
Decision expected this week could determine if multiple child sexual abuse lawsuits against the Roman Catholic Diocese can go to trial
A federal bankruptcy judge in Albany is weighing whether to allow multiple child sexual abuse lawsuits against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany to go to trial in order to “jump-start” what many attorneys for hundreds of alleged victims have said is a languishing attempt to reach a global settlement with the church and its insurers
“The only thing I’ve produced in the last 13 months is millions of dollars in professional fees,” Judge Robert E. Littlefield Jr. said during a conference last month. “It is getting somewhat frustrating that all I’m doing is approving fees. I’m not approving anything of substance. We’re just languishing on the sidelines. We need to jump-start the process or the case is heading to failure.”
After hearing objections from attorneys for multiple insurance companies that hold policies for the diocese or its parishes and schools, Littlefield said at a follow-up court conference on Feb. 12 that he would issue a decision this week on whether to lift the court-ordered stay, which had frozen hundreds of lawsuits while the bankruptcy is pending.
Attorneys for the victims contend part of the breakdown in reaching a settlement is that there have not been enough cases decided at trials to give the parties a more accurate picture of how much the victims should be compensated. Those attorneys said that several cases which were settled as the diocese threatened to file for bankruptcy more than two years ago did not establish that benchmark. They said those plaintiffs, some of whom were aging and in poor health, accepted deals out of fear they would otherwise get nothing.
The plaintiffs’ attorneys also noted that a judge overseeing the bankruptcy case for the Buffalo diocese had lifted a stay in that case to allow 17 claimants to go to trial as part of a similar effort to spur negotiations. That bankruptcy case has been pending for five years.
‘Months to live’
Hundreds of alleged victims have brought claims of child sexual abuse committed by priests and others employed by the Albany diocese or its affiliated entities. Their attorneys said that the perpetrators, witnesses and victims are dying of old age at an increasing pace, reducing the chances of the victims being compensated for the abuse they suffered decades ago. The attorneys allege insurers are dragging out the process in part to take advantage of that mortality.
Cynthia S. LaFave, whose firm, along with Jeff Anderson & Associates, represents 190 plaintiffs who have pending claims against the Albany diocese, told Littlefield during the Jan. 29 conference that they recently were forced to settle a case for an alleged victim who was dying and feared that his wife would be left with nothing if he didn’t accept the deal.
“We settled for a low number because his life was over, and he was asking us to do that, so we did it,” LaFave said. “In another diocese, a man called us and he said, ‘I have weeks to months to live; I will not have my children have to pay to bury me.’”
LaFave said much of the pre-trial discovery in several cases — some handled by other law firms — has been completed, but that Michael Costello, a longtime attorney for the diocese, needs help completing depositions of plaintiffs in a timely manner. She told the judge Costello is a “one-man show” and suggested that augmenting his efforts could help expedite the litigation in the cases that could quickly go to trial.
“We have real clients, real people who are aging out, sick or dying, and the worst days of my life are when one of those people dies without a resolution,” LaFave said at the conference. “What comes from the mouth of a jury means so much more than forced settlements on the fear of bankruptcy, or on the fear of death. So it matters so much to be able to get into a courtroom and get these cases moving for our clients.”
Attorneys for the insurance companies pushed back during the conference, noting that the timeframe of the negotiations and the length of the diocese’s bankruptcy is not unusual. They said that they believe there has been ample progress in the ongoing mediation process, although Costello, for the diocese, told the judge the negotiation sessions should be occurring with more frequency.
One of the cases that the Albany diocese settled prior to filing for bankruptcy was resolved in July 2022, when the church agreed to a $750,000 settlement with Stephen J. Mittler, a Saratoga County man who had been victimized as a child by a priest who was a serial sexual abuser.
Mittler’s lawsuit had been the first Child Victims Act case filed against the diocese to be scheduled for trial. His attorney said the diocese had threatened that it would file for bankruptcy before a trial if the case went forward.
“Whether that was hyperbole or truth, my client opted to settle to avoid waiting for the bankruptcy to resolve itself, which could take years,” Mittler’s attorney, Matthew J. Kelly, said at the time.
A motion filed recently by attorneys for the “tort committee,” which represents the alleged victims and is at the forefront of the ongoing mediation efforts, said blocking the lawsuits from moving ahead “takes away any risk of a trial and judgment, (and) the stay allows the insurers to ignore reasonable settlement offers and do nothing.”
They also pointed to litigation against the Archdiocese of New York in which an insurer has declined to indemnify the archdiocese on more than 1,000 child sexual abuse claims.
The Times Union reported a year ago that attorneys for Chubb Insurers, which reported more than $225 billion in assets and $57.5 billion of gross premiums written in 2023, have asserted in court filings that their companies “have no duty to provide insurance coverage” in many of these cases and that the Archdiocese of New York “alone must bear the full financial consequences of its criminal behavior.”
The Archdiocese of New York is affiliated with or operates dozens of churches, schools and other entities that are facing thousands of claims under both the Child Victims Act and the Adult Survivors Act. Those statutes temporarily lifted New York’s statute of limitations to allow survivors of abuse to file lawsuits against their abusers or the institutions that harbored them.
Chubb, which began issuing insurance policies to the Archdiocese of New York in 1956, says they do not cover damages for “bodily injury that the insured expected or intended.” In 1986, Chubb began adding sexual molestation exclusions in their excess policies (which extend the conditions of a pre-existing policy) and, in 1988, to their primary policies.
“For decades, the ADNY’s clergy and employees raped and molested children entrusted to them in ADNY-affiliated churches, schools, and camps,” attorneys for Chubb wrote in a memorandum filed in August in state Supreme Court. “The ADNY hid these crimes, protected the perpetrators, and in many cases, punished and stigmatized those victims brave enough to come forward. … Incredibly, the ADNY now portrays itself as the hero for finally acknowledging its wrongdoing, claiming its insurers stand in the way of justice and compensation for its victims.”
Attorneys for the alleged victims with pending claims against the Albany diocese said they fear attorneys for the insurance companies will try the same tactic here.
“One way or another, and sooner or later, this bankruptcy will arrive at the same point as the other 17 similar bankruptcies: Allowing claims to proceed in state court will be the only viable path for ensuring the insurers comply with their insurance contracts,” the tort committee’s motion reads. “Unless the debtor, its co-defendants, and the claimants want this bankruptcy to drag on for years at a cost of tens of millions of dollars, only to end with a plan that allows all of these claims to continue in state court, they should support the court granting this motion and taking away the ability of the debtor’s insurers to use the automatic stay to sit on the sidelines.”
Littlefield, the federal bankruptcy judge, is expected to rule Tuesday on whether to lift the stay and allow a small number of the lawsuits pending against the Albany diocese to proceed to trial.Sign up for Daily HeadlinesStart your day with a local news briefing delivered to your inbox.
Brendan J. Lyons is a managing editor for the Times Union overseeing the Capitol Bureau and investigations. Lyons joined the Times Union in 1998 as a crime reporter before being assigned to the investigations team. He became editor of the investigations team in 2013 and began overseeing the Capitol Bureau in 2017. You can reach him at blyons@timesunion.com or 518-454-5547.