Louisiana Voice

Plaintiffs are gearing up, after five years and millions of dollars spent on attorneys and other professionals, to file for dismissal of the bankruptcy suit of the Archdiocese of New Orleans.

Archbishop Gregory Aymond placed the nation’s second-oldest Roman Catholic diocese under Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings and the case has been going nowhere fast as legal costs continue to mount.

Near the end of a status conference with Bankruptcy Judge Meredith Grabill on April 17, attorney Soren Gileson, representing the alleged abuse survivors, can be heard on a RECORDING of the proceedings as saying that he would file for dismissal “hopefully, by the end of the month.”

In addressing Judge Grabill, he noted that the legal battle has been going on for “five years, (unintelligible) millions of dollars,” lots of “song and dance” and that he’s been receiving “angry phone calls,” presumably from clients.

More than $40 million has been spent on attorney and professional fees to date with no resolution to the litigation yet in sight despite rumors of impending settlement discussions.

Those discussions have rendered little progress, however, as the church and some 550 plaintiffs remain far apart in their numbers. The plaintiffs are demanding $1 billion and the church has countered with an offer of $62.5 MILLION. Throw in three of the church’s insurance companies, and you got a real legal tango – and tangle.

The Archdiocese of New Orleans is only one of several Roman Catholic archdioceses that have been sued over sexual abuse of children, mostly altar boys, by priests. The first such case in Louisiana was in the Lafayette area but the scandal that rocked the Archdiocese of Boston claimed international attention and set the stage for dozens more such cases.