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Release of Priest Data Barred
The Los Angeles Times, September 23, 2005
On Sept. 22 the Second District of the California Court of Appeal issued an important ruling in regard to what information can be made public about priests accused of sexual abuse.
But the Los Angeles Times story about the ruling is wrong on some points and so muddled on others that a reader would come away unclear about what exactly happened and what happens next.
At issue before the Court were the "proffers" which the Los Angeles Archdiocese attorneys prepared on each of the 118 priests named in lawsuits that are a part of the ongoing mediation and settlement talks among attorneys for the plaintiffs, the Archdiocese and insurance companies. The proffers summarize essential information in the files on the priests and are intended to give the plaintiffs' attorneys and others the information they need without turning over the actual files, which the Archdiocese believes are private and privileged.
The Archdiocese intended to make the proffers public last fall; however, attorneys for some of the priests appealed. The result was this ruling by the Court of Appeal.
The headline on the Times story, "Release of Priest Data Barred," is misleading (perhaps because the reporter's account of the ruling befuddled the headline writers too.)
What the Court actually said is that the Archdiocese could not make public the proffers themselves because to do so would violate the confidentiality of the mediation process. Significantly, however, the Court also said that there was nothing to prevent the Archdiocese from releasing any of the information on which the proffers are based.
In other words, the proffers themselves can't be published but the substance of them can. And this the Archdiocese intends to do.
Here the Times obscures rather than clarifies.
According to the Times story: "Attorney J. Michael Hennigan, who represents the church, said he still intends to make information about accused priests public but did not offer a timeline." The Times then goes on to quote lead plaintiffs' attorney Raymond Boucher as saying he plans to appeal because "the church has a moral and legal obligation" to release the information.
A reader would come away from this with the impression that the Archdiocese feels no sense of urgency about releasing the information.
As has so often been the case, the Times got it wrong.
In fact, the Archdiocese does have a timeline for releasing the information. The information will be published, Hennigan told the reporter, "as soon as the ruling becomes final."
The reporter then asked Hennigan when this would be? Hennigan told her that it depended on the Court's rules and that he didn't know the exact date yet.
Boucher, the plaintiffs' attorney, was standing nearby, having just made his comment to the reporter about appealing to force the Archdiocese to release the information. When he heard Hennigan's promise to release the information once the order becomes final, he said that based on that he would have to change the statement he made to the reporter.
But the reporter, apparently, never followed up on this.
Panel Keeps Church Papers Off Web Site
The Los Angeles Daily Journal, September 23, 2005
The Appeal Court ruling was also covered by the Daily Journal. They got it right. Here's the way their story begins:
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A state appeals court on Thursday blocked the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles from posting on the Internet summaries of documents the church kept on priests accused of sexually abusing children.
In the 16-page ruling, a panel of 2nd District Court of Appeals justices said release of the summaries violates the mediation confidentiality privilege.
The summaries were prepared as part of the archdiocese's proffers in settlement negotiations between the church and 550 alleged sexual-abuse victims.
"Because those summaries were prepared for purposes of an ongoing mediation process, contain admissions of liability by the archdiocese, and reveal something about the mediation discussions, we agree that their disclosure would violate the mediation confidentiality privilege," wrote Justice Laurence Rubin.
Presiding Justice Candace D. Cooper and Justice Madeline I. Flier concurred. Doe 1 v. Superior Court, 2005 DJDAR 11623 (Cal. App. 2nd Dist. Sept. 22, 2005).
But the court pointed out that nothing in its ruling prevents the archdiocese from publishing information contained "in the underlying personnel or other files that it has maintained."
Archdiocese lawyer J. Michael Hennigan said, "I can't post them in the form they were submitted in mediation, but the information contained in there is free to publish."
The archdiocese tried to publish the summaries on its Web site as a way of reassuring church members increasingly concerned about the scandal and the financial implications it poses for the church.
Hennigan of Hennigan, Bennett & Dorman in Los Angeles was undeterred by the ruling.
"We intend to conform to the ruling and publish the substance of the proffers," he said. |
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