On 14 July 2007, two days before the first of a series of clergy abuse trials was to begin, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles agreed to pay 660 million dollars to settle claims brought by 508 people, the largest such settlement by a US Catholic diocese at the time. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Haley Fromholz approved the agreement on 16 July 2007. The claims named 221 priests, brothers, lay teachers and other church employees and spanned about 70 years. The archdiocese contributed 250 million dollars in cash, with the remainder paid by its insurers and by several religious orders. Cardinal Roger Mahony, then archbishop, issued a public apology when the settlement was announced.
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Kind of Record JurisdictionCalifornia, United States (Los Angeles County Superior Court) 2 Publication Year Period Covered, FromCBS News reporting on the settlement's approval describes it coming after 'more than five years of negotiations' before the July 2007 agreement, placing the start of the claims and negotiation period around 2002, the year the Boston scandal nationally triggered the wave of California claims; no source gives one precise start date. Period Covered, To Documented Findings
Accused Documented Victim Estimate Key FindingThe 660 million dollar settlement averaged about 1.3 million dollars per claimant, though individual payouts varied with the severity and duration of the abuse alleged. It was reached two days before the first scheduled trial and, at the time, exceeded the Archdiocese of Boston's 2003 settlement and every other US diocesan settlement before it. The agreement was part of a broader liability that, with earlier settlements the archdiocese had already paid, brought its total abuse related payments above 770 million dollars. 1 Cross-Tradition Connections
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