$104M awarded to sexual abuse victims of Mount Cashel and N.L. priests
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A third-party insolvency monitor has put forward a sum of $104 million to pay the victims of sexual abuse by Newfoundland and Labrador clerics, but it’s not certain how much money will actually flow to hundreds of claimants.
A four-page document filed with Newfoundland and Labrador Supreme Court by George Kinsman, a senior vice-president of Ernst & Young, puts the net claim award at $104,074,667.
Among the 367 claims filed, 292 have already been accepted, while 65 were disallowed and 10 are considered pending.
The document says the average payment to a claimant is $356,417.
The document, released Friday, is the latest step in a saga that started in 1987 with charges against one priest and would expand to a series of scandals that closed the Mount Cashel orphanage in St. John’s and recently forced the Roman Catholic Episcopal Corp. to sell churches and other property to settle claims.
But the church’s earlier bill was estimated to be $50 million, when there were about 100 claimants.
The church has raised more than $40 million by systematically selling off assets on the Avalon Peninsula, including a $13-million deal for the Newfoundland and Labrador government to buy former Catholic school properties.
Lawyer Geoff Budden, whose firm represents 189 of the accepted claims, told CBC News he’s satisfied with the third-party monitor’s calculation.
He noted that some clients, though, may feel unsatisfied.
Content retrieved from: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/church-mount-cashel-settlement-1.7255755.
