After this lawyer, who said he didn't have anything to do with the Catholic church, called his friends at the Archdiocese, he called me to come into his office again.
He asked me what I wanted. He said the Archdiocese didn't want to meet personally. He knew I was planning to file with or without him, and I was approaching the statute of limitations for the torts that had to be filed.
I told him what I thought was fair. By that time, I'd been defamed by The Willamette Week, and it was partly because of the Abbey's attorneys and "officials". But I wasn't doing anything for the money. I told my lawyer I wanted enough to cover the costs of lost classes and college, for medical bills for anxiety, depression, and panic attacks (which only began for the first time after what they did by involving police to falsely arrest me), and enough to cover counseling with a private therapist/psychologist. By the time I added up how much lost work and college had cost me, and everything else, I came up with a number. I had initially felt at least $60,000 was fair, but to get it over with, if they apologized and returned the family photos they'd not returned, and if they were able to give some kind of reassurance this wouldn't happen to other women, I was willing to settle things for a little over $20,000. My lawyer was shocked and thought it was reasonable and more than fair. Besides which, he was getting a cut of that settlement amount.
I knew $20,000 was absolutely dirt cheap. So did my lawyer, and he said it was more than fair, which I knew already. I wasn't even counting my damages other than general damages which had accrued directly as a result of their actions. I had records to prove it besides, and was willing to show all my bills for it.
I told Christa about it and she knew that I had been offended when Farmer's was trying to offer me only $1,000 for my entire hit-and-run car accident. All of a sudden, my lawyer comes back to me with an offer. He had me come into his office and said Dick Whittemore was offering $1,000. I said, "What?! That's ridiculous." So then my lawyer said, "Whittemore says the Abbey has a lot of hostility towards you."
I said there was no way and that I would file the lawsuit myself if that was the offer. So then my lawyer tells me he'll take my case. He had me sign a retainer, and swore to take my case to trial if we didn't settle for a reasonable amount first. He took both the Defamation case against the WW, and the case against the Archdiocese.
I knew he had something to do with the Archdiocese, but still, at that point in time, I made a good faith effort to withhold judgment about someone's connections and how they would treat me, even if they were a member of the church I was suing.
So he said he was handling everything. What happened, is that this lawyer stalled. He kept putting off filing a lawsuit, even though he knew what the statutes were. He said he was going to file but that he had to familiarize himself with my case first. So I waited. At the last minute, my lawyer told me the Archdiocese had talked to him, and that they were willing to settle for a certain amount. It was something like $8,000 (or $8,000 after my lawyer got his cut) and it was to go directly into a fund for counseling, by the counselor of my choice.
"That's enough for about 3 months of counseling!" I said. I knew what rates were, and there was no way $8,000 would pay for the diagnostics and counseling and everything. Well, that was how much counseling I'd be able to afford from the funds after my medical bills for anxiety and things were paid. It didn't touch my lost money for work or college, and especially not after my lawyer took a 1/3 from the $8,000 as his cut. They knew I was totally broke, but I wasn't a beggar, and I knew what was fair for what I'd been through. They were purposefully trying to insult me. My lawyer said it was because there was no actual touching involved. I told him what they'd done was far worse, when they falsely accused me of doing all kinds of things I hadn't done, and smeared my reputation. On TOP of this, they wanted to buy my silence.
For $8,000, they wanted me to sign a statement, swearing I would never do anything to "offend" Whittemore or anyone at the Abbey and that I would keep the settlement a secret and not tell a soul.
THEY TRIED TO BUY MY SILENCE.
Why? Because they KNEW they were in big trouble if the truth of what they'd done got out. At the time they slandered me, I was extremely naive, innocent, and had never been part of any party scene. I didn't have sex, had been celibate for years, didn't drink, smoke, had never done drugs, and had excellent work and personal references. I had never committed any crime in my life or been charged with anything until the Abbey tried to drum something up. AND, I had never been accused, by ANYONE, of being mentally unstable in any way, and yet AFTER all the things the Abbey and their zealots did to me, I DID have a period of depression (naturally) and anxiety, which was completely normal given the circumstances. There was no "disorder". I had damages and situational problems from situational circumstances, which I knew could probably be remedied with correction of the defamation to my repuation and counseling.
In the contract which was faxed to my lawyer, from Whittemore's offices, it stated I would not write a book or talk about anything that had ever happened to me. I knew this would be bad because if I didn't talk, I could never clear my name. No one would ever know. And if I did talk, what would they THEN sue ME for?
I asked my lawyer for the contract. He refused to give me one. I asked him why I couldn't have a copy and he said this agreement had to cojme from me first, and he would relay the message to Whittemore. He said, if I agreed, then they'd have me sign it, but they didn't want me to have an actual copy of the piece of paper with their SHITTY deal on it.
What I thought was odd, was that I had told my friend Christa, after they offered me $1,000, that if I had wished I had a copy of that offer, because I would use it to prove bad faith. I told her I wanted to frame a copy of the $1,000 offer by Whittemore and Mt. Angel Abbey and The Archdiocese. And, believe me, the Archdiocese was involved in this whole thing.
This was before I found out about laws of vicarious liabilty, which all the other plaintiffs attorneys ignored later on down the road, letting the Archdiocese off for a lot of crap they were legally rsponsible for, which their own documents (I showed through my research) proved they were legally connected and responsible.
They didn't want, among other things, my leaking any of the emails or letters or correspondence I had with their monks either. Or to discuss the police involvement they'd tried to use against me, and the threats.
I asked my lawyer, "I'm not supposed to do anything to "ANNOY" Whittemore and the Catholic church?" I read the contract again and said that was a little broad. "I could potentially do anything, at any time, which would "annoy" them," I said, and lose my settlement money (which he knew wasn't enough to begin with).
It basically meant not protesting, not writing a book, not talking to anyone about it, not revealing correspondence, and not doing whatever else in god's name might "annoy" them.
"No one is going to buy my silence," I said, "And especially not for $8,000. Not unless they CORRECT the defamation that's been done to my name first. If they do, I'll shut up."
My lawyer hastily took the contract from me, and had always had his hand on it to begin with. He didn't want me to have a copy. I found out later that this was because any offer was a basic admission of guilt. They wouldn't offer anything, and ask to buy my silence if they'd done nothing wrong. They assumed I had no other options, and probably felt secure, I realized in hindsight, that if I turned down the cheap offer, they could stall with my lawyer's cooperation, until my statutes expired and then get away with the whole thing. They'd already defamed me in the newspaper and online, and knew no lawyers want to sue the Catholic church except the ones who were swamped with child sex abuse cases. They knew they would be safe. I might talk, but they would find other ways to try to discredit me or shut me up.
I said to my lawyer, "I want to file a lawsuit. A jury will be more than happy to give me what I need and it will be a hell of a lot more than what I even asked for in settlement."
"You want to sue them?" he said.
"Yes." I said, and I asked him how soon we could file. We were only a month or less away from the statutes expiring.
I had a bad feeling about things, and read up a little on torts and statutes and everything, just to be sure I knew what was going on. I wanted to know what fit and what my lawyer was planning to do.
So I left off that day, without a contract in my hand to prove what their offer had been. My lawyer knew, and I DID have a signed retainer with him. He had promised to file a lawsuit and take it all the way to litigation. He tried to tell me that the Abbey had made low-ball offers to people who had been molested as kids too. Something like $15,000 when there was actual contact. That was for a quick settlement, for confidentiality, and included an "apology".
We'd already wasted time, and I wanted to get going and get things filed. So I sent emails and left messages and talked to him on the phone but he never returned my messages or calls. At ALL. He was just dragging things out. I began to get suspicious (rightly) and worried, so I sent him a letter, and THIS time, I sent it certified mail. I had a copy and proof that I had notified him about my statutes expiring and what the deadline was, and had repeated I hadn't heard from him.
After I sent him this letter, he still stalled. With only two weeks left before my statutes expired, he sent me a letter telling me he was withdrawing from my case. He had put it off to the very last minute, giving me NO time to find another lawyer. I asked him for the return of all my materials and a copy of our retainer and my file, to take to another lawyer, and also, to take to the Oregon State Bar, and he stalled. The Oregon State Bar (OSB) helped me get my file, but when I went to the PLF to get assistance for getting a new attorney, so at least my complaint could be drafted and filed before I lost out, they tried to offer a very poor solution and then backed out entirely.
I will describe what the Bar offered in my next post, and what I decided to do.
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