Delaware court adds $30 million to record sex-abuse award
December 09, 2010
A Delaware jury that had already awarded $30 million in compensatory damage to a sex-abuse victim has tacked on another $30 million in punitive damages.
Francis DeLuca, the laicized priest who was charged with molesting John Vai, has been ordered to pay $30 million in punitive damages. He had already been assessed with $27 million in compensatory damages.
The parish where DeLuca served, which had been hit with a $3 million compensatory award, was directed to make a token $1 payment in punitive damages for failure to supervise the former priest.
The Delaware jury has assessed by far the largest financial awards ever delivered for a single plaintiff in a sex-abuse case against the Church.
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Further information:
- Jury awards $30 million more in priest abuse case (News Journal
- Delaware jury goes easy on parish in abuse verdict (Washington Post)
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Posted by: AgnesDay -
Dec. 10, 2010 12:08 PM ET USA
As bad as this is, we do have a responsibility for what happens in our parishes. If we have learned anything in the past 50 years, we cannot rely on fallible pastors to provide all vigilance over parish operations the way we used to. Molesters leave signs before they ever molest, and laypeople who notice and report them will keep these characters from lighting on our children.
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Posted by: umpynelson3459 -
Dec. 09, 2010 10:55 PM ET USA
With the millions of dollars awarded by the Delaware Jury who are they trying to punish? The guilty party or every Catholic who lives in Delaware. It seems to me to be a ridicules amount of money and ends up punishing all the parishioners as well as the guilty priest. Maybe they think all the money comes directly from Rome...
