Louisville has high number of abuse lawsuits

Volume of claims involving priests called 'enormous'

By Deborah Yetter

May 26, 2002 - The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Louisville may be experiencing the highest volume of lawsuits alleging abuse by priests in the nation, according to experts and lawyers around the country.

In just five weeks, plaintiffs have filed 95 lawsuits alleging they were sexually abused by 15 former or current priests with the Louisville archdiocese -- including one who is now the bishop of Lexington. One additional lawsuit accused a Catholic school teacher of sexual abuse, and another accused a deacon formerly of Louisville.

''In 12 years of this work, I have never seen so many suits filed in such a short span of time,'' said David Clohessy, national director of the Chicagobased support group Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP.

''That is a lot,'' agreed California psychotherapist and former priest A. W. Richard Sipe, who has researched and written extensively about priests' sexual abuse of children.

''I do expect more people to come forward.''

Michael Turner, a construction company owner who filed the first of the current lawsuits in Louisville, said he was astonished by the cases that have followed.

''For me, being one person out there, I felt like I was hung out to dry,'' Turner said. ''Then all these people started showing up and they are still showing up.''

Some of the priests and Bishop J. Kendrick Williams of the Diocese of Lexington, who was accused of abuse while serving as a priest in Louisville, have denied the allegations. Some have died and others have declined to comment or not been available for comment.

All of the lawsuits name the archdiocese and none are against individual priests, although they are accused of sexual abuse in the suits. The lawsuits allege that archdiocesan officials knew about the alleged abuse and did nothing.

Archdiocesan officials have declined to comment on the lawsuits and had no comment for this article, archdiocesan spokeswoman Cecelia Price said.

DIOCESES ELSEWHERE are reeling from numerous claims of sexual abuse. In Boston, nearly 200 lawsuits are pending.

But Boston, the fourth-largest archdiocese in the country, has 2.1 million Catholics, compared with about 200,000 in the Louisville archdiocese.

People familiar with such litigation around the country say it's unusual to have so many lawsuits filed so fast.

''As I track these cases across the country, that's an enormous outbreak,'' said St. Paul, Minn., lawyer Jeff Anderson, who estimates he has handled some 500 such lawsuits against the Catholic Church in more than 25 states.

''It's extraordinary.''

Those familiar with such litigation give several explanations for the surge of lawsuits:

• After one person files a lawsuit, others are more willing to come forward because they realize they weren't the only alleged victims, and they gain the courage to go public with claims that are sensitive and may be embarrassing.
  
• An alleged pedophile may have multiple victims and continue to abuse children for years, leaving a large number of victims.
  
• The widespread national publicity about allegations in other cities, particularly Boston, has made people more aware of the problem and is causing greater numbers of alleged victims to come forward.

Four alleged victims of the Louisville priest facing the most allegations, the Rev. Louis E. Miller, said in interviews that those reasons were factors in their decisions to file suit. Miller has been accused of sexual abuse in 43 lawsuits as of last week.

Miller's lawyer, Frank Radmacher, declined to comment. Miller has previously denied at least some of the allegations.

''I KEPT THIS a secret,'' said Dr. James Jewell, an obstetrician and former student at Holy Spirit, where he alleged Miller abused him in the early 1960s. ''I never talked to anyone. I didn't discuss it. I didn't share it.''

But after the first lawsuit was filed April 19, and subsequent lawsuits were reported in the newspaper, Jewell was shocked to read the name of a former classmate, Dr. J. Boswell Tabler, as one of those alleging Miller had abused him at Holy Spirit in the early 1960s.

The next day, Jewell said, he called Tabler to discuss the issue and decided to file a lawsuit after Tabler gave him the name of his lawyer, William McMurry, who is representing nearly all the plaintiffs.

Jewell said the conversation with his grade school friend helped him decide what to do.

''I carried it around with me for 42 years in the silence of my mind and soul,'' Jewell said. ''It made it easier for me to get this off my chest.''

Tabler, a Louisville psychiatrist, said he had been seeking a way to take action after he discovered Miller was working as a chaplain at a home for the elderly where Tabler saw patients. Tabler said he had assumed Miller was no longer an active priest because a group of Holy Spirit parents had complained about him to church officials in the early 1960s and Miller left the parish.

''In my naivete, I thought he'd been taken care of,'' Tabler said.

But Miller was transferred to another parish, the first of several where he would serve until 1990, when he became chaplain at Sacred Heart Village.

Miller worked from the 1960s through the 1980s as a pastor or associate pastor at Holy Spirit, St. Athanasius and St. Elizabeth of Hungary in Louisville; St. Aloysius in Pewee Valley; St. Ann in Howardstown; and Our Lady of Mercy in Hodgenville.

Tabler said he had been considering going to church officials or prosecutors with allegations about Miller.

Then, Tabler said, The CourierJournal reported April 14 that Miller had resigned as chaplain at Sacred Heart home for the elderly after the archdiocese received a complaint against him of sexually abusing children decades ago.

FIVE DAYS LATER, Turner, 44, of Pewee Valley, filed the first of the current lawsuits against Miller, alleging the priest sexually abused him while Turner was a grade school student at St. Aloysius in the 1970s. More lawsuits followed and Tabler decided to act.

''When the first one came forward, I think it gave courage to others to come forward,'' Tabler said.

McMurry, the lawyer handling most of the cases, agrees.

''It made it easier to come forward and they're still coming forward,'' McMurry said. ''It's not over.''

Turner said he is astonished at the number of cases as well as calls he's been getting from other alleged victims considering filing suit.

Among those motivated to act was Jim Strader, known for his local broadcasts and trade shows on hunting and fishing. Strader filed suit May 21, accusing Miller of molesting him at Holy Spirit.

''I have no relationship with Mr. Turner, but I immediately called many of my classmates at Holy Spirit,'' Strader said. ''We all shared the same feeling -- this has to stop, and it has to stop now.''

Tabler said he, too, was involved in a flurry of phone calls to former Holy Spirit classmates after the initial lawsuit was filed against Miller.

''We were on the phone with each other saying, 'Hey, what are you going to do?' '' he said.

Nearly a dozen students from Tabler's class at Holy Spirit are among the plaintiffs in lawsuits against Miller, and Tabler said he knows of more alleged victims.

''I can tell you right now there's more,'' he said. ''I have other friends and acquaintances who were victims, too.''

SEVERAL PEOPLE involved

with such cases elsewhere in the county estimate the current lawsuits represent only a fraction of the victims.

''Our best estimate is that 5 percent of the survivors pursue litigation,'' said SNAP's Clohessy. Many don't want the publicity or potential embarrassment and worry about the effect on their jobs and their families, he said.

Strader agreed with that.

''You don't want to remember this stuff; you don't want to deal with it,'' he said. ''But when you see other people doing it, it gives you some hope that something good may come out of it.''

Jewell, the obstetrician, said the impact that publicity about the case would have on his job was a concern for him. But the support has been overwhelming, he said.

Nurses approach him at the hospital to congratulate him for coming forward.

''I've had notes from my patients, telling me how impressed they are with my courage,'' Jewell said.

Tabler said he hasn't regretted his decision to file suit.

''The support I've received has been absolutely fantastic,'' he said.

Sipe, the psychotherapist, said he expects Louisville and other dioceses will see many more such lawsuits because the court cases and media coverage are ripping away the secrecy with which the church once handled such cases.

''What we're getting down to is what's hidden in the secret system,'' Sipe said. ''That's what's unfolding and that's what you'll see unfolding in Kentucky, just as in Boston and Los Angeles.''