News & Features

Church under siege: Trials in the media
archived from: 2004-11-24
by: TIM DRAKE

(Last of two parts)

The following article is an overview of lawsuits filed against dioceses across the country in clerical sex abuse cases. While the Diocese of Pittsburgh has not been affected as dramatically as some other dioceses, the lawsuits filed here by two attorneys over the past several months are part of the national pattern in the similarities the lawsuits share.

Last week, the issue of skirting statutes of limitation was raised. This week, the publicity campaigns undertaken by lawyers suing the church are discussed.

Another tactic being employed by tort lawyers in attacking the church is the practice of holding news conferences and media events to make such allegations public, often before notifying the diocese or the accused.

When attorney Jeff Anderson brought a civil case against the Archdiocese of Los Angeles in April 2002, he held a news conference on the downtown courthouse steps alongside two alleged victims and a dozen supporters. Afterward, he walked two blocks to deliver the suit at the cathedral. Two months later, Anderson repeated the same publicity tactic on the courthouse steps in St. Cloud, Minn., with two alleged victims who were suing St. John’s Abbey in Collegeville, Minn.

University of St. Thomas law professor Patrick Schiltz said such tactics are nothing new. Schiltz has defended churches from all major denominations in approximately 500 clergy sexual abuse cases.

“Fifteen years ago, I used to get calls from a plaintiff’s lawyer,” Schiltz said. “They said they were going to file a suit. Unless we paid, they said they were going to hold a press conference the next day at a hotel.

“This is very common,” Schiltz said. “They want to punish the church with publicity and also generate further cases.” The disadvantage, of course, is that once the allegation is in the media, great damage is already done.

“There has been a suspension of, and disregard for the time-honored principle of innocence until proven guilt,” said Steve Gottwalt, director of communications for the Diocese of St. Cloud, Minn. “How is justice carried out when an attorney, instead of notifying the accused, notifies the media first? Once that clergy member’s name is in the media, they are all but convicted regardless of whether they are innocent or guilty.”

Presumptions have switched

As a case in point, Gottwalt cited the example of retired Bishop Paul Dudley of Sioux Falls, S.D., who had wrongly been accused of sexual misconduct in 2002.

“The accusation was all over the news that night,” Gottwalt said. “A couple of months later, there was a footnote saying that he had been cleared. How much damage did that do to his name and integrity? I think a number of attorneys have been self-serving to get a conviction in the public forum rather than following the legal system which they are a part of.”

Schiltz also expressed his concern about possible false accusations.

“In this day and age, the presumptions have switched,” Schiltz said. “The abuse is assumed to have occurred. If a plaintiff doesn’t have a valid claim, we won’t know about it. If the 201st victim of John Geoghan comes forward, who is going to question him?”

Gottwalt also faulted the attorneys for their failure to notify the diocese of their charges.

“I’ve been in the position to get a call from media personnel who say they have a release of accusations and want to know what the church has to say,” Gottwalt said. “Moments later, the news release crosses our fax machines. We cannot comment on what we haven’t seen, so the church ends up looking like it’s trying to hide something.”

In Pennsylvania, a recent Supreme Court ruling could put a damper on such tactics. Lawyers who send reporters copies of lawsuits by fax or e-mail could now lose their immunity from defamation suits.

In the past, attorneys who filed lawsuits could not be sued for libel or defamation for anything said in court as this was considered part of the freedom to aggressively serve their clients.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled, however, that once attorneys use means outside the courthouse to further their ends in cases, such as generating publicity through newspaper accounts by supplying media with copies of lawsuits, such immunity comes to an end.

Follow the money

Dioceses and parishioners are rightly concerned about what impact continued litigation will have upon the church. One concern is how the cost of litigation and settlements affect their charitable giving.

“Dioceses settle because both parties find out what the evidence is and reach a settlement to save everyone the expense of a trial,” Schiltz said.

He added that there are additional inducements to settle because the sky is the limit when it comes to what a jury may come back with. “It could be $10,000 or $10 million,” he said.

Litigation attorney and former Minnesota Court of Appeals Justice Roger Nierengarten cautions dioceses against quick settlements. He likened them to “throwing priests to the dogs.”

“Just because they were ordained doesn’t mean they give up their constitutional rights,” Nierengarten said. “I preach due process to every bishop I can.”

Others wonder how many additional dioceses will declare bankruptcy, and whether doing so will give civil authorities governance over church property.

Attorney Jeff Anderson doesn’t think so.

“In neither Portland nor Tucson will the settlements shut down or interrupt the good work of the church,” Anderson said. He claimed that the money does not come from parish funds, but rather from insurance companies, investments and the divestment of property.

“When you look at the layers of insurance and the financial ability of the diocese to pay, it is not the case that the parishioner is the one being punished,” Anderson said.

Schiltz disagreed. He said the story of who is paying the bills for clergy sexual abuse is one that has largely been ignored. According to Schiltz, a large and growing percentage of the litigation brought against churches is not covered by insurance, and as legislatures lengthen statutes of limitations and cases get older, insurance coverage becomes harder to find.

Therefore, said Schiltz, “the people who are punished — are not the abusive priests or the negligent bishops. The people who pay those damages are the people in the pews or the people whom the diocese serves.

“The problem with punitive damages,” he added, “is that they are assessed based upon the wealth of the defendant.”

Impact on religious liberty

Still, some question whether the attorneys’ motives are pure.

“No one has talked about who are these attorneys and what are their motivations,” Gottwalt said. “With some of these attorneys receiving 40 percent, there is an unspoken profit motive. They may be champions of the downtrodden, but they are certainly making a lot of money doing it.

“The church is under siege,” Gottwalt said, “but we’ve had the white flag up for months. Name any other organization that is going through as much retooling to address this issue. We accept full responsibility for these things, but the attorneys and the media need to answer some questions. They have victimized justice.”

Perhaps the biggest unanswered question is what impact such litigation and dioceses declaring bankruptcy may have on religious liberty. Schiltz feels they pose a significant threat to religious freedom.

“One reason why clergy sexual misconduct litigation is troubling — one reason why it burdens religious liberty — is that it gives hundreds of juries around the United States almost complete freedom to act against churches out of religious animus, even when that animus has nothing to do with the evidence in the case,” Schiltz wrote in an article published in the Boston College Law Review. “I worry that, with the gun of clergy sexual misconduct litigation pointed at their heads, churches may stop acting like churches.”

Drake is a staff writer with the National Catholic Register and the author of “Young and Catholic: The Face of Tomorrow’s Church” (Sophia Institute Press, 2004).

 

 

 

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