Archdiocese seeks to stop giving sex-abuse plaintiffs information

Church says lawyer missed deadline for answering requests

By Gregory A. Hall
The Courier-Journal

A judge is expected to rule soon on a request by lawyers for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Louisville to allow the organization to stop providing information to plaintiffs in the sexual abuse cases against it.

The archdiocese is seeking to stop sharing the information because, it says, the lawyer for most of the plaintiffs missed a deadline for providing information from his clients.

Each side accuses the other of trying to stall the process.

William McMurry, the attorney for more than 160 of the 196 plaintiffs who've sued the archdiocese since April, filed a request in Jefferson Circuit Court on Oct. 25 asking that his deadline of Oct. 24 for responses to requests for information by the church be extended to Feb. 1.

Edward Stopher, an attorney for the archdiocese, filed a motion on Oct. 31 seeking to relieve the archdiocese's requirement to provide any further information and to force McMurry to respond by Dec. 1.

Judge James M. Shake heard the motions this week and is expected to issue a ruling.

''We have a tremendous desire to move this process along to resolution, and we want to do so in a timely manner,'' Brian Reynolds, chancellor and chief administrative officer of the archdiocese, said in an interview yesterday.

But to do that, Reynolds said the archdiocese needs the information it requested about the plaintiffs. Reynolds said he has received responses about 42 of McMurry's plaintiffs.

''We operated in good faith,'' Reynolds said. ''The request to delay this until February is simply unacceptable.''

The archdiocese, Reynolds said, needs to see ''the whole picture'' and the lack of responses ''makes it difficult for us to get a whole picture.''

That also makes it difficult to know what depositions to take, Reynolds said.

The Oct. 24 deadline was ''far too ambitious,'' McMurry said, even though he acknowledged that it was by agreement.

''It takes a considerable amount of time to sit down with 166 clients and answer 30 questions that ask every place they've ever lived and ever worked and all the details of their psychiatric and medical background,'' McMurry said.

The lawsuits claim abuse by priests and others connected with the archdiocese. Most of the suits allege abuse that occurred decades ago when the plaintiffs were minors.

McMurry said the archdiocese could be taking depositions in the cases where he and his clients have provided the information requested.

''Obviously they have had in their hands nearly 50 complete discovery responses from victims,'' McMurry said. ''Yet they have taken no steps to depose any of those victims to move the case forward, and that's entirely their decision.''

McMurry also said, ''There's no reason other than delay that motivates their motion.''