Woman gets $500,000 in church abuse case

[geezerbob]

msnbc.msn.com/id/22106054/

LOS ANGELES - A woman who was sexually abused by seven Roman Catholic priests and had a baby by one of them received a $500,000 settlement from America’s largest archdiocese.
Rita Milla, now 46, first filed her case in 1984 after she says she was abused as a teenager by priests in the Los Angeles area. The payment was part of a $660 million global settlement the diocese reached collectively with past abuse victims.

 

[puzzleannie]

receiving money in a settlement of any kind of lawsuit against the Catholic Church (and negligence and liability settlements dwarf the hugely publicized payouts on the abuse lawsuits) does not always imply guilt, proven through the legal process. In this case the settlement is part of a larger one, based on dozens of cases, only some of which have been investigated and adjudicated as having a sound basis. the rest of the plaintiffs received settlements only on the basis of probable cause, which is usual in such class actions.

nowdays it is usually enough to file a lawsuit to get a settlement from the diocese’s insurance company, simply because the cost of investigation and the judicial process is so huge. I am not commenting on the relative merits of the case alleged by the woman in this news story, but making a general observation.