Child Victims Act Buffalo
Title: Child Victims Act attorneys oppose Buffalo Diocese move to shield parishes from lawsuits
Publisher: The Buffalo News
Date: 10JUN2020
A federal bankruptcy judge will soon decide whether hundreds of lawsuits against Catholic parishes and former parishes, schools and other entities in the Buffalo Diocese should be blocked from moving forward in state courts.
The diocese’s Chapter 11 filing in February immediately stopped lawsuits against the diocese from advancing as it goes through a reorganization.
In May, the diocese asked Chief Judge Carl L. Bucki of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the Western District of New York to extend that same protection to more than 400 Catholic parishes, schools and other entities that also have been named as defendants in Child Victims Act cases.
The diocese’s lawyers said the move would help pave the way for a “global resolution” of all CVA cases involving Catholic church entities in the Buffalo Diocese because “it will bring all parties to a single bargaining table and will encourage settlement from all sides.”
But several lawyers for plaintiffs in CVA cases have objected to the diocese’s injunction motion, which seeks an indefinite stay of all pending and future litigation against the Catholic parishes, schools and human service agencies that are separately incorporated and not part of the diocese bankruptcy filing.
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