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	Arbitrator to Decide Awards in Boston Church Abuse Cases By Pam Belluck The New York Times March 10, 2006 http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/10/national/10boston.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin BOSTON, March 9 — A second group of plaintiffs who say they were abused by priests in Boston has reached a settlement with the archdiocese here, agreeing to allow an arbitrator to determine the monetary award they will receive. The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston and lawyers for the plaintiffs said all 88 plaintiffs who were offered the settlement in December had signed the agreement and would be awarded $5,000 to $200,000 in arbitration hearings to begin this month. The average award will be $75,000, the lawyers and the archdiocese said. "This is an important first step in resolving pending claims of sexual abuse of children by priests of the Archdiocese of Boston," said Kelly Lynch, a spokeswoman for the archdiocese. "We're very pleased at the response the settlement offers generated." Plaintiffs' lawyers had been saying for several months that the amount being offered was too low. In the first round of settlements in 2003, 554 plaintiffs received awards of $80,000 to $300,000, with an average settlement of $159,000. But the plaintiffs were apparently unwilling to take their chances in court, where statutes of limitations, caps on damages and other issues could come into play. "The victims are unenthusiastically agreeing to settle," said Mitchell Garabedian, a lawyer who represents 28 of the plaintiffs. "They feel insulted by the settlement, but they want to begin healing and moving on with their lives. They feel revictimized by the archdiocese, but they want to obtain some sort of closure." The arbitration process, including the arbitrator, will be the same as for the first round of settlements, in which plaintiffs presented their cases without the priest or archdiocesan representatives there. Ms. Lynch said about 100 additional abuse claims were pending. Thirty of those will be offered arbitration "in which the arbitrator will be asked to decide whether or not the abuse occurred," she said. If the arbitrator concludes there was abuse, plaintiffs will be offered settlements identical to the 88 second-round cases. The remaining 70 cases either involve priests who were not from the archdiocese, lay employees or plaintiffs who were over 18 at the time they say the abuse occurred, Ms. Lynch said. She said those would be decided on a "case by case basis" and could involve "arbitration, mediation or litigation."
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