What to know about the Los Angeles Catholic Church’s $880M settlement with sexual abuse victims

[Jim Burton]

https://apnews.com/article/los-angeles- ... 9b73cc3e92

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The Archdiocese of Los Angeles has agreed to pay $880 million to hundreds of victims of clergy sexual abuse dating back decades.

The settlement with 1,353 people who allege that they were abused by local Catholic priests is the largest single child sex abuse settlement with a Catholic archdiocese, according to experts. The accusers were able to sue after California approved a law that opened a three-year window in 2020 for cases that exceeded the statute of limitations.

The Archdiocese of Los Angeles has previously paid $740 million to victims. With the settlement announced Wednesday, the total payout will be more than $1.5 billion.

I find it quite ironic that sexual abuse fanatics can say with a straight face "it's all about the power", when literally billions of dollars are changing hands over accusations that will never be proven. If that's not a stronger incentive than the abuse itself, what is?

[Phossu]

I find it quite ironic that sexual abuse fanatics can say with a straight face "it's all about the power", when literally billions of dollars are changing hands over accusations that will never be proven. If that's not a stronger incentive than the abuse itself, what is?

Are you implying that you believe a significant portion of the allegations are false or exaggerated and motivated by money? Or am I misunderstanding?

[Jim Burton]

The incentive to falsify is there from the moment the reward is put on offer, so ultimately we will never know.

Say I had dealings with the same person. There are a number of reasons I may feel jealous of the accusers, and want to join the dogpile.

I'm against putting out financial rewards to accuse a person of impropriety. Your only incentive must be to seek justice.

[Phossu]

I'm no lawyer, nor am I familiar with the details of this case. However my basic understanding is that this allowed for people to sue even if the allegations are for crimes that have passed the statute of limitations. I would assume that the procedure would be identical to any other sexual abuse case, and it wouldn't be as simple as "sign me up for the dogpile!" It's not like a class action lawsuit.

I hear what you're saying about incentives, but I fail to see how that wouldn't apply equally to all other cases that can result in settlements. Would you argue that settlements should not be an option in sexual abuse cases? When we are talking about alleged systemic abuse cover ups from a massive religious organization I feel that it is important to hold the organization accountable alongside the alleged perpetrators, who may not even be alive decades after the fact.

The article does mention "triple damages" if there was evidence that the Catholic church covered up previous incidents. I have concerns about this, I think it's important to target systemic cover ups but I'm not sure if tripling the payout is a good way to go about this. I'd be curious to see how much of the total amount was due to this 3x bonus, and how they determine if this was the case.

[Fragment]

I think the incentives are really off here.
Historic claims far beyond the statute of limitations.
Generous financial compensation.
Claims against an institution rather than an individual.

False claims aside, I think there are definitely cases that are only coming to light due to the above three conditions.

Getting a blowjob from a priest definitely sounds a whole lot more traumatic if there’s a 6 figure payout at the end of it.

[Artaxerxes II]

Damn, that's a really huge sum. It's as if they want to bankrupt an entire archdiocese. I wonder how much will the Catholic priest abuse scandals will go, no one knows for sure, but it sure did give pedophobic new atheists new fodder to use against the church.

Regarding settlements, that's actually a normal thing, given that most court cases are settled out of court via monetary settlements, contrary to what court dramas want you to believe. Not that I think it negates the chance of financial compensation, but it's important to keep that in mind that such settlements in the world of court cases are the standard procedure, not an anomaly.