Church Also Plans to Sell Camp Holy Cross to Help Settle Priest Sex-Abuse Cases
By Sam Hemingway
Burlington Free Press
February 3, 2010
http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/article/20100203/NEWS02/100203006/Catholic-Diocese-of-Burlington-to-sell-headquarters
BURLINGTON (VT) -- The state's Roman Catholic diocese is preparing to sell its sprawling North Avenue headquarters, a lakeside camp and other valuable real estate as part of a push to reach monetary settlements with victims of priest sexual abuse, a church lawyer said Tuesday.
"The diocese is interested in settling these cases," attorney Tom McCormick said. "It's time to put these matters behind us."
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| The former St. Joseph’s Orphanage on North Avenue in Burlington, now headquarters of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Burlington, will be sold as part of a settlement with victims of priest sexual abuse going back decades. Photo by GLENN RUSSELL |
There are 25 clerical abuse cases pending at Chittenden Superior Court. Five others have been the subject of jury trials and another five were settled out of court.
McCormick said the diocese is able to sell the lands after reaching an out-of-court settlement last week with a Colorado man who, as an altar boy in Burlington in the 1970s, was molested by the Rev. Edward Paquette.
The man won an $8.75 million jury award against the diocese in 2008 and, while awaiting the outcome of an appeal of the verdict before the Vermont Supreme Court, had liens put on part of the 30-acre headquarters property and the 26-acre Camp Holy Cross property on Malletts Bay in Colchester.
"We're going to make an effort to settle these cases," McCormick said. "The diocese is ready to relocate its offices."
Neither McCormick nor Jerome O'Neill, the attorney for the Colorado man, would discuss details of the out-of-court settlement. Both said the Colorado man initiated settlement discussions. The Free Press does not publish the names of alleged sex abuse without their consent.
"He made an offer we couldn't refuse," McCormick said.
O'Neill said the Colorado man decided to settle his case rather than wait for a decision on the appeal as a way to move on with his life.
"He wanted to put it behind him," O'Neill said. "He gave them a deadline and said, 'Here's the deal. Take it or leave it.'"
As part of the settlement, the appeal of the $8.75 million verdict before the Vermont Supreme Court was dismissed. Another 2008 jury verdict against the diocese, for $3.6 million, remains pending before the high court.
O'Neill, the lead lawyer for 25 former altar boys with molestation claims still pending against the diocese, said he welcomed McCormick's statements Tuesday but said he is skeptical about how serious the diocese really is about resolving the cases.
"Actions speak louder than words," O'Neill said. "My experience is that you can never trust what they say when they talk about resolving the cases."
O'Neill said his clients have always been interested in resolving the cases, but have been offered such low amounts of money by the diocese that it was not worth it them to settle their claims.
Judge's order
Tuesday's talk about resolving the long-running legal battle involving priest sexual abuse in Vermont came a day after the presiding judge issued an order saying she would conduct a joint trial consolidating the claims of 18 former altar boys who claim the Rev. Edward Paquette abused them in the 1970s.
"Some of the cases have been pending since 2005," Judge Helen Toor wrote in a three-page order. "Delay of this magnitude is fair to no one, not to the plaintiffs, and not to the diocese."
Toor's order also proposed that the three cases alleging long-ago molestation of altar boys by the now-defrocked Rev. Alfred Willis be tried jointly. Willis' alleged misconduct also took place in the late 1970s.
Toor ordered the lawyers for the former altar boys and the state's Roman Catholic diocese to submit all 25 cases to mediation by April 1.
The diocese is the sole defendant in the cases based on claims by lawyers for the former altar boys that it negligently hired and supervised priests who were child molesters.
Toor, who first raised the idea of joint trials during a November court hearing on the status of the cases, has been looking for ways to accelerate resolution of the 25 cases since she became the presiding judge at the Burlington court in September.
"Vermont courts rarely see multiple related cases of this number," Toor wrote in her order. "Unless this court devoted all of its time to these cases to the exclusion of the many other cases pending on its docket — an option neither practical nor fair to the many other litigants waiting their turn — separate trials in all 25 cases will not be concluded for years."
Since 2007, five clerical abuse trials have been staged at the court, two of which ended in a mistrial. The most recent case ended in early October with a $2.2 million judgment against the diocese.
O'Neill said he welcomed Toor's order but was not sure how much it would speed up resolving the cases.
He said the facts in many of the Paquette cases are similar but, because the impacts were different for each former altar boy, the decisions on financial damages for each of the plaintiffs will be different.
"Anything that moves the cases forward is a good thing," O'Neill said. "Liability is not difficult to determine. But you have to determine statute of limitations, compensatory damages and punitive damages individually. That can't be done in a consolidated trial."
O'Neill said determining damages in each of the former altar boys' cases will likely require a separate jury.
McCormick also said he had questions about the feasibility of the joint trial concept.
"To my knowledge, it's never been done in the state, so the logistics would have to be worked out," he said.
Toor, in her order, acknowledged that joint trials on the Paquette and Willis cases won't by themselves bring the cases to conclusion.
"The particulars of how the trials will be structured, including issues involving jury draw, peremptory challenges and how damages portions of individual claims will be tried, are matters that will need to be resolved," she wrote.
Most of the cases against Paquette involve claims by former altar boys at Christ the King Church in Burlington who say they were molested by Paquette in the mid-1970s. A handful involve similar allegations of misconduct with altar boys by Paquette at parishes in Montpelier and Rutland. The Willis cases involve claims he molested boys at parishes in Milton and Montpelier.
Diocese motion fails
In a separate ruling issued last week, Toor rejected a request by diocesan lawyers to have Toor revise the verdict in the case tried in October, or order a new trial.
The diocese based the request partly on what it said were flaws in the jury deliberation process and claims about two jurors' bias contained in a letter a juror wrote to Toor after the end of the trial.
"One juror stated that he 'hates the Catholic church' and another stated her concern that the Catholic school her niece or nephew attends may be affected by whatever the outcome was," the letter said in part.
Toor said court rules about alleged biases of jurors do not allow verdicts to be reconsidered unless there is evidence of jury tampering or jurors obtaining prejudicial information about the case from a source outside the courtroom.
Contact Sam Hemingway at 660-1850 or e-mail at shemingway@bfp.burlingtonfreepress.com
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