A group of Massachusetts legislators is proposing an end to the charitable immunity cap for lawsuits involving child sexual abuse. Under current state law, non-profit groups have a $20,000 liability limit, which is designed to protect organizations that serve a community interest from damaging lawsuits.
Proponents of the change claim that “has discouraged sexual abuse victims from coming forward and has sharply limited payments in other cases.” That’s a smokescreen. The reality is that this is designed to further enrich plaintiffs’ lawyers who have been getting their standard one-third of settlement/judgment retainer from settlements far above the $20,000 limit. In fact, I can’t think of a single case in recent memory in which the $20,000 limit has come into play. Certainly not a case involving the Church, at whom this law is squarely aimed. In fact, all of the settlements so far, on a per plaintiff basis, have exceeded $20,000.
But with the Archdiocese of Boston starting to dig in its heels in the latest round of lawsuit settlement talks, the lawyers are probably getting worried that if they do indeed have to go to trial, they will get stuck by the charity cap. Instead of making millions more dollars off the suffering of abuse victims (and alleged victims), they’ll get a pittance. (One-third of the previous $85 million settlement is $28 million; one-third of $20,000 is about $6,700.)
And since lawyers with millions of dollars received from big judicial settlements have lots of money to donate to the campaign coffers of politicians ... you do the math.
Changing the statute of limitations
Technorati Tags: bishops, Catholic, lawsuits, Massachusetts, politics, sex abuse
What we appear to be seeing in the General Court, Dom, is a split in the once united Catholic caucus—if one may apply this term to legislators who don’t formally act as a grop—with one wing, led by State Senator Marian Walsh, attempting to use legislation to influence how the Church manages itself and is held to account for mismanagement by civil authorities and another wing, led by, among others, Rep. Gene O’Flaherty, who has a day job as a defense attorney, showing greater sympathy for the Church as a defendant in the current and, potentially, future cases alleging sexual abuse many years after the fact. As chair of the House Judiciary Committee, O’Flaherty has the power to bottle up the Walsh bill on the House side for at least the rest of the legislative session or, more likely perhaps, in the current climate, until Walsh is willing to trade an increase in the $20K limit—which, as you suggest, has already become a dead letter—for more modest tinkering on the statute of limitations in cases involving the sexual abuse of a minor.
I tend to believe that the cause of justice would be better served over-all were the Vatican to take action against those who were responsible for allowing serial pedophiles to contine to prey upon the innocent. While it is undeniable that in our litigious society all manners of victims are encouraged to seek monetary compensation, I have been struck in my interviews with those who have claimed to have been abused as kids that many seem less interested in the money, per se, than in receiving a clear sign that the Church is sorry for what they were forced to suffer and is discipling those ranking officials who so baldly failed in their duties to protect innocent children and adolescents.
If the legislature plays with the cap, it’s not only the Catholic Church that will suffer. That change will affect every other charity as well. I would think there would be plenty of opposition to that change from sources removed from the RCC. Can’t imagine the Red Cross would like it, for instance, and they would certainly have enough clout to get their displeasure across.
Led no doubt by Catholic legislators.