BishopAccountability.org
	Overseer Appointed for Abuse Payments By Paul A. Long Cincinnati Post [Kentucky] March 10, 2006 http://news.cincypost.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060310/NEWS01/603100340 The Blue Ash attorney who administered the Archdiocese of Cincinnati's sexual abuse payments has been appointed to monitor the $85 million settlement with the Diocese of Covington, although lawyers on both sides said the designation is unwanted and counter-productive. Matthew Garretson is unqualified for the appointment, diocese attorney Carrie Huff said in an affidavit filed in Boone Circuit Court. Her counterpart for those who sued the diocese agreed with that assessment. In a separate affidavit, Robert Steinberg added that Garretson's involvement with the $3 million Cincinnati settlement is a red flag to his clients. "The circumstances of the Cincinnati settlement, which many class members ... view as a further victimization of victims by requiring victims to release all their legal rights in return for payments that do not approximate the true value of their injuries ... raise further concerns," Steinberg said. "Class members in this case have told class counsel on many occasions that they object to the involvement in this case of anyone connected with the Cincinnati settlement." But Garretson, a Blue Ash attorney, said he is uniquely qualified, and said Potter's appointment proves that. The firm he heads, he said, has been involved in many large legal settlements in class-action and similar lawsuits over the years. Garretson is an adjunct professor at Salmon P. Chase College of Law, where he earned a law degree after receiving an undergraduate degree at Yale University. "I'm very honored that Judge Potter would select me," he said. "I'm very confident we have the experience necessary." He said he's not particularly perturbed by the attorneys' dismissal of his experience. "There are always competing interests among attorneys in these cases," Garretson said. "If I had a weak stomach or were a shrinking violet, I wouldn't be working on these cases. I'm quite confident we'll work great together." Steinberg and his partner, Stan Chesley, filed suit against the diocese in Boone Circuit Court in 2003 on behalf of hundreds of people who were abused by priests and others in the diocese over the past 50 years. Eventually, the two sides agreed on $85 million settlement, to be paid to people who show they were abused. The exact amounts of the payments to each person will depend on the nature of the abuse, as outlined in a grid that is part of the settlement. Payments will range from $5,000 to $450,000. More recently, the two sides announced they had recruited William Burleigh, chairman of the board of the E.W. Scripps Co., which owns The Post, and Thomas D. Lambros of Ashtabula, Ohio, former chief judge in the Northern District of Ohio, to be special masters who will determine the individual awards. But Senior Judge John Potter, who is overseeing the case, said he wanted a third person to administer and monitor the payments. In making the appointment, Potter said Garretson's job will be to "act as the court's eyes and ears." Although he approved the settlement, Potter said he maintains jurisdiction and oversight over the payments. He said the need for that oversight was proven during a hearing last month, when Steinberg and Chesley failed to send the required notice to class members of a hearing on attorneys' fees. "The failure to send this notice required the court to react and delayed the ruling on the issue of fees by a month," Potter wrote. "Had a monitor been in place, any corrective action would have been proactive, and in all probability the notice would have been sent in a timely manner." Potter cited Garretson's experience in the $25.7 million Louisville settlement involving 243 victims and the Cincinnati settlement. The attorneys and others involved in those cases had high praise for Garretson's work, Potter said. But Steinberg and Huff argued otherwise. Huff called his experience and education "unremarkable." His "aggressive marketing and self-promotion" - he has regularly contacted the attorneys seeking the appointment - "are unseemly and do not bode well for future interaction over the course of a long settlement period," she said. She said neither the Louisville nor the Cincinnati settlement "was particularly successful from a pastoral perspective or a public relations perspective." The Covington diocese, she said, took the extra effort to ensure that individual victims were treated individually. Bishop Roger Foys was intimately involved in the process. The diocese sold off property and made other sacrifices to show the victims and the community that it was "sincerely committed to making reparation for the terrible wrongs the victims endured as children." It hired only the best experts, bringing in well-respected people from all over the country, she said. "In each case, we strove for excellence because the diocese believes such appointments lend an air of dignity and gravitas to the reparations process," Huff said. "We intended that these choices serve as an additional sign to the victims that the diocese is willing to go far beyond what is minimally required and truly seeks to make amends."
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.