Seattle Archdiocese to pay $12.1 million to settle sex abuse lawsuit
The Archdiocese of Seattle agreed on Tuesday to pay $12.1 million dollars to settle a lawsuit involving 30 alleged sex abuse cases stretching back decades. The latest payout adds to at least $1.25 billion in settlements and jury awards paid by the Catholic Church in America in response to sex scandals since 1994.
According to the men who filed the lawsuit, whose ages ranged from 42 to 68, the church failed to protect them from known sex abusers at the O’Dea and Briscoe schools in King County, Wash., from the early 1950s through the mid-'80s. Though both institutions were operated by the Roman Catholic Christian Brothers order, which filed for bankruptcy in 2011, the schools were owned by the archdiocese....