Would it be possible, in the US, for abuse victims to sue the Catholic church, or a part of it ? And actually win? And who would pay the compensation money?
In the Netherlands, it made headlines last month that the Dutch Catholic Church 's chosen insurance company had earmarked a cool one million dollar (!) to settle claims from victims of past sexual abuse by Church officials in the Netherlands.
The Catholic Church has been sued many times over this issue and has paid out many claims and has judgments against it.
They’ve sold property to pay out claims and paid millions and millions of dollars to people/groups.(I’m sure its been hundreds of millions by now) I’m sure some was paid by the Church, and by insurance companies.
Thanks, I didn’t know that. Can you point to some cases, raindog? It would be interesting to know *who *the victims sued, in a legal sense; the Church as an institute that provided insufficient care; or individuals of whom the Church employed (and does the church, actually, employ nuns and priests, in teh sense that they can sue them; or are nuns and priest strictly speaking *members *of an organization instead of employees?); And would the church that paid be a diocese, a parish, or would the money come out of some Vatican bank account?
I’m running out to work, and I suspect that other Dopers will have provided cites by the time I get back.
In the US-----for a few years now-----there are news reports of this particular Dioceses has paid out $XXXM and this particular Dioceses has (or will) be forced to declare bankruptcy, another is selling property to pay claims etc etc etc.
tomndebb or someone else may be able to shed light on their legal structures (it appears that each Dioceses is a separate legal entity).
I seem to remember L.A., Boston, and several others had legal troubles. Its been fairly widely covered in the US news.
As I understand it (and I could be completely wrong - going off hazy half-forotten memories here), it’s not a single “company” - it’s more like a crapload of franchises. So you’d due a diocese (franchise). Priests etc. are employed by the diocese, I believe. That makes the Pope less a CEO and more a figurehead, albeit one with an incredible amount of influence.
And of course that’s not counting the initial legal defense, which was that priests were “independent contractors” and therefore the diocese wasn’t financially responsible for their criminal wrongdoing.
Here is one of many. From the linked article:
Here’s a little background about the cases in Los Angeles. The suits are against individuals dioceses, and the bishops of those dioceses.
Unrelated to both Catholics and sex abuse, the Episcopal church in California is suing individual parishes who have broken away and affiliated with other churches. The suits are to determine whether the parishes or the diocese actually owns the physical assets of the parishes.
Wikipedia article on settlements and bankruptcies in Catholic sex abuse cases. It lists settlements that total hundreds of millions of dollars, and I doubt that it’s comprehensive.
So far, all the successful lawsuits have been against individual dioceses, and the local bishop, as head of the dioceses.
But a recent lawsuit, in Kentucky, is against the whole church, and the Pope directly. It claims that the cardinals and bishops are in effect ‘employees’ of the Pope, and following his orders. Especially as the Pope was personally knowledgeable, and made decisions to not respond in some of these cases, according to the suit.
The plaintiffs are asking that the Pope be required to testify under oath as to what he knew, and when he knew it. The church is fighting this lawsuit, even opposing the request to have the pope respond under oath.
The cases in the US have had each diocese as a separate legal entity without recourse to entities higher up in the hierarchy, such as the Vatican. I suspect that there is now sufficient evidence to hold the Vatican as partially responsible as they have the capacity to issue orders and expect them to be followed and now there is evidence that the Vatican sent abusing priests from one diocese to another without informing them of the risk.
If this were not a religion, long ago the parent organization would have shared responsibility. It’s status as a religion has protected it. As I mentioned, I don’t think that will continue.
To take it to another level of specificity, (and this may somewhat vary by jurisdiction, I’m not 100% sure), but for example, in Chicago, you would sue “The Catholic Bishop of Chicago, a corporation sole”.
From Blacks: “Corporation Sole: A series of successive persons holding an office; a continuous legal personality that is attributed to successive holders of certain monarchical or ecclesiastical positions, such as kings, bishops, rectors, vicars, and the like. This continuous personality is viewed, by the legal fiction, as having the qualities of a corporation.”
Suits against the archdiocese are the only context in which I’ve seen “a corporation sole.” Also, fwiw, in my experience most plaintiffs got it wrong on the first try but we* would send them a nice letter telling them who they should be suing.
*I once worked for a law firm that did some work for the local archdiocese.
Wow. As the Vatican is, in fact, a separate nation (so, not a part of Italy) forcing the Pope to testify would amount to forcing the titular head of a foreign state to testify. Have there ever been any instances when a foreign head of state was forced to testify in an US lawsuit? What if he refused to come? Would he be accused of obstructing justice? Could he even be arrested if he set foot on USA soil? :eek:
I assume he would be handled the same way the capo di tutti capi of the mafia (were there such an entity) would be handled, correct?
International law clearly recognizes immunity of heads of state from criminal prosecution.
In the United States, the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, 28 USC § 1330 et seq, provides immunity from suit for a foreign state, defined at 28 U.S.C. § 1603(a), (b). Most federal courts have concluded that individuals other than heads-of-state are also immune as “agents or instrumentalities” of the foreign state.
What was the legal principle that allowed Manuel Noriega to be prosecuted?
He wasn’t a head of state when he was arrested.
I posted this in the Pit thread: Can the Pope be charged as a criminal? The answer is ‘maybe’.
So it is just a matter of political will then. If there was enough political will the Vatican could be invaded and the pope stripped of his head of state status and he could be brought to trial.