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All this makes me glad I will never be a Bishop. My understanding is that the lawyers advised the bishop to do what was strictly required by the law, no more and no less. Ann wrote:
Was Nelson correct when he told the bishops they could be sued? I’m not asking out of sympathy for the church’s law firm, but just wondering how this particular case will play out.
The business that I work for keeps records for the required amount of time (7 years) and then destroys them. The thinking goes that if we keep documents for longer then some of those documents might be used against us in a hypothetical court case. If they still exist and they are in our possession then we would be required to produce them. It is an example of doing only what the law requires but without the moral quandary questions of doing what we can to stop potential abuse.
Roy wrote:
My understanding is that the lawyers advised the bishop to do what was strictly required by the law, no more and no less.
This is my understanding as well. Sort of “You aren’t legally required to report so don’t report.”Roy wrote:
Ann wrote:
Was Nelson correct when he told the bishops they could be sued? I’m not asking out of sympathy for the church’s law firm, but just wondering how this particular case will play out.
The business that I work for keeps records for the required amount of time (7 years) and then destroys them. The thinking goes that if we keep documents for longer then some of those documents might be used against us in a hypothetical court case. If they still exist and they are in our possession then we would be required to produce them. It is an example of doing only what the law requires but without the moral quandary questions of doing what we can to stop potential abuse.
That’s the sticky wicket here and where I think most people are upset at the response. Yeah, they may not have been legally required to report but what about moral and ethical obligation? Layers are gonna lawyer, that’s what they do. I’m also interested to see where this goes. The church does have good lawyers (meaning lawyers who are good at lawyering) and it seems like most of these things that go public end up getting dismissed. I think that would be a shame because of what we know from a fairly in depth report by the AP. I would be fine if the church decided to settle rather than a court spectacle, but then we’ll be unlikely to know what the settlement entails other than the victims got some money and that maybe the church might make some changes to prevent having to pay in the future. And I think that’s the real hope that most of us have. We can’t change what happened to these kids or what the bishops did or what the church did, but changes can be made to prevent this from happening again from the moral standpoint rather than the legal standpoint. I personally don’t care whether a bishop is legally required to report, but I do believe bishops and others should have the moral responsibility to stop abuse (by reporting if necessary).
DW reported to me that President Nelson gave some rather abrupt and tangential remarks condemning abuse before moving on to the business of GC. I felt that this was in reference to the Arizona story. The following article would seem to support that theory:
I don’t think that I am particularly impressed by public condemnations of abuse. Literally everyone condemns abuse in public. What really makes the difference is whether our policies allow abuse to continue. Thankfully, We are not terrible in rooting out abuse and I believe that we are getting better.
I also believe that threat of legal and financial liability is one of the driving forces that help motivate us to do better.
Yes, I did hear Pres. Nelson’s remarks at the end of the Saturday morning session. I will say it is was very clear that abuse of any kind is a sin and the church condemns it, but that’s basically all he said. To me it seemed like an add on to the intended talk, which was short and sort of rambling anyway. It gained lead headlines in both the Deseret News and Salt Lake Tribune, though (and I think that was by design). It would have been nice to hear something like “We recognize the church hotline system has some faults and we’re making changes to fix them. Errors that have hurt people have been made, we apologize, and we’re doing everything we can to prevent such errors in the future.” When hear that when I see an elephant fly.
This new AP article is from the same individual that wrote the original AP article.
This article is much shorter than the first.
I don’t see much new information other than the plaintiffs wish to add the wife of the abuser (who already did jail time for her part) and LDS Family Services as “co-conspirators”. It appears that employees/social workers from LDS family services sometimes answer calls from the helpline to help screen how serious it is and who it should be forwarded to. The defendants maintain that no LDS family Services employees were involved in this particular case and that only attorneys and attorney staff were involved (thus invoking attorney client privilidge).
Roy wrote:
It appears that employees/social workers from LDS family services sometimes answer calls from the helpline to help screen how serious it is and who it should be forwarded to. The defendants maintain that no LDS family Services employees were involved in this particular case and that only attorneys and attorney staff were involved (thus invoking attorney client privilidge).
I actually think this part is significant to the case because I believe it’s not only sometimes church employees answer the calls I think it’s all the time (or almost all the time) and they refer the call to the attorneys if necessary. It does appear that the church is trying to invoke attorney/client privilege where none might exist. But the complicating factor is that since all records are destroyed at the end of the day, there’s nobody for the plaintiffs to directly point the finger at – they don’t know who took the call(s) because the records are destroyed. That’s what is somewhat infuriating because there seems to be no real reason to destroy those records daily except to make it harder for people to see or find out what’s happening. And this from an organization that keeps dirt on individuals in perpetuity (despite preaching all is forgotten when one is forgiven).
This appears to be a different sexual abuse case from California!
The church seems to have settled for $1 million last December. The eye popping 2.3 billion judgement seems to be against the father who has no way to pay.
A million dollars seems to be a drop in the bucket for the church these days, pocket change so to speak. I think it is significant they settled and that the settlement was made public. It is likely (in my opinion) that there have been other such settlements that are not publicly disclosed due to court orders. I don’t think abuse in the church is at the level of the Catholic church, but we are much smaller and have a different structure. Nevertheless, I do believe the church should own up to its faults in covering up, or at least not reporting, abuse and try to make it right.
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