“Ore. archdiocese offers bankruptcy plan”
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Portland has filed a bankruptcy reorganization plan that would pay about $75 million to settle nearly 170 claims of priest sex abuse.
Insurance companies have agreed to pay nearly $52 million under the proposal, with the rest of the money coming from various archdiocese assets - but not its parishes and schools.
The reorganization plan, filed just before midnight Monday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court, said that 143 claims had been settled for $40.7 million.
It would require the archdiocese to provide up to $13.75 million to pay a remaining 26 claims that have not yet been settled. It also would set up a $20 million fund to pay future claims.
... The archdiocese was the first in the nation to file for bankruptcy protection in July 2004 just as a $135 million priest-abuse lawsuit was scheduled to go to trial.
... After the Portland archdiocese filed for bankruptcy in 2004, dioceses in Tucson, Ariz.; Spokane, Wash.; and Davenport, Iowa, have followed. The Tucson diocese has emerged from its bankruptcy.
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