The Roman Catholic Diocese of New Ulm, Minnesota filed for Chapter 11 reorganization in 2017 in response to a wave of clergy sexual abuse claims filed under Minnesota's Child Victims Act lookback window. After three years in bankruptcy, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert Kressel gave final approval to a 34 million dollar settlement; the hearing is dated 10 March 2020 by MPR News and 11 March 2020 by the Marshall Independent, both describing the same confirmation, so both dates are recorded rather than resolved to one. The trust compensates 93 survivors who filed suit, funded by 26 million dollars from diocesan and parish insurance coverage, 7 million dollars in cash from the diocese including a mortgage on its Pastoral Center, and 1 million dollars from the diocese's 66 parishes. Claimants voted unanimously to approve the plan, which also commits the diocese to seventeen child protection protocols, including employee training requirements, whistleblower policies and restrictions on clergy having unsupervised contact with minors.
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Documented Findings
Victim EstimateReported as 93 survivors who filed suit against the diocese and were compensated by the confirmed plan; the figure comes from contemporaneous reporting on the plan's approval and is consistent across both sources. Key FindingThe New Ulm settlement was reached with unanimous claimant approval and without the multi-year insurer litigation that stretched several other diocesan bankruptcies; two thirds of the fund came from the diocese's own insurance coverage rather than contested carrier disputes, and the diocese's seventeen child protection protocols were negotiated as a condition of the plan itself rather than as a separate later commitment. 2 Inquiry Profile
Kind of Record JurisdictionDistrict of Minnesota, United States (U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Judge Robert Kressel) 1 Publication Year Period Covered, From Period Covered, To Cross-Tradition Connections
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