Opposing Lawyers in Clergy-Abuse Cases Seek Trials

Attorneys for Cardinal Roger M. Mahony and for their opponents, who represent more than 560 people suing the archdiocese for allegedly failing to protect them from predatory priests, teamed in the request, saying efforts to settle the lawsuits had stalled.

The two sides, along with the archdiocese's insurers, have been at the negotiating table for nearly three years, trying to hammer out a global legal settlement that could approach $1 billion.

Both the archdiocese's and the plaintiffs' attorneys blame the impasse on the insurers, which have sued, demanding that the archdiocese hand over documents about the alleged sexual abuse by priests.

"We are not able to get anywhere near the levels of sincere participation from our carriers," said attorney J. Michael Hennigan, who represents Mahony.

"Unfortunately, we haven't made, frankly, any progress at all over the past nine months," plaintiffs' attorney Raymond P. Boucher told Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Haley J. Fromholz. An insurance representative could not be reached for comment.

Fromholz did not immediately rule on the motion, but said he intended to continue to work with the attorneys "to move the cases along toward trial."

Victims' advocates were divided over the prospect of the scandal landing squarely in the public eye, after nearly three years of secrecy.

A.W. Richard Sipe, a La Jolla therapist and an expert on clergy sexual abuse, applauded the lawyers for trying to go to trial, saying it was the only way to get to the truth about how the archdiocese handled its clergy-molestation problem.

"We've got to get the facts out," Sipe said. "If they make a global settlement, nothing comes out."

But Mary Jane McGraw, a Southern California leader in Voice of the Faithful, a Boston-based victims' advocacy group, assailed Mahony for backing an order that would force alleged victims to take the stand to resolve their lawsuits. "The survivors are getting increasingly compromised psychologically and emotionally," she said.

McGraw said dozens of trials would probably yield hundreds of smaller payouts, instead of one enormous settlement, and attract less attention, reducing the negative publicity for the archdiocese.