The Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange agreed Friday to pay nearly $7 million to settle four molestation lawsuits, including one against a former Mater Dei High School coach scheduled to go to trial next week.
At $1.7 million, the average payout to the alleged victims -- all women -- is significantly higher than the average $1.1 million paid to scores of plaintiffs in an earlier settlement by the Orange diocese and $1.3 million paid to Los Angeles plaintiffs.
The plaintiffs in the recent cases were students at the time of the alleged abuses between 1990 and 1999 by two Mater Dei faculty members, a Santa Margarita Catholic High School teacher and a choir director who worked at St. Timothy's and St. Edward's parishes.
The case about to be tried involved a lawsuit filed by a woman identified as Jane C.R. Doe accusing former Mater Dei assistant basketball coach Jeff Andrade of molesting her for more than a year, starting when she was 15. In a deposition taken as part of the lawsuit, Andrade admitted to having had sex with the teenager.
Ryan DiMaria, an attorney for the accusers, said the settlement was fair and the deals "made the best out of a bad situation."
"I'm very happy for the four girls that, to some extent, justice was able to be done," he said. "But nothing will give them back their childhood."
Attorneys on both sides said the agreements were reached after a flurry of negotiations moderated by a Los Angeles judge who convinced Bishop Tod Brown to show up at the courthouse and get directly involved in resolving the cases.
"The settlement of these civil cases represents the moral obligation for the church for such behavior by adults in positions of responsibility," Brown said in a news release. "By settling these cases, I sincerely hope that it will enable the women who brought these actions to begin the process of healing and reconciliation."
John Manly, lead attorney for the plaintiffs, characterized the statement issued by the diocese as "nothing more, nor less, than a litany of misstatements, misrepresentations and outright falsehoods" by the opposing side.
"At no point throughout this entire process did anyone from the Diocese of Orange or their lawyers say a kind word, offer healing, or do anything other than try to defeat the spirit of these four brave women," he said in his own news release.
