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Abstract
This paper examines the motivations of men and women who entered into mass tort litigation against the Catholic Church, primarily the Archdiocese of Boston, which alleged clergy sexual abuse by Roman Catholic priests. The study is based on in‐depth interviews with adult survivors of sexual abuse (perpetrated against boys and girls), and with their attorneys and other legal advocates. We explore the challenges faced by survivor‐litigants, as well as their accounts of the subjective experience and meaning of litigation. Our focus is on clarifying petitioners’ multiple objectives and illuminating some of the unanticipated ways in which participation in the case offered possibilities for positive, even transformative, outcomes. The study contributes to our understanding of the course and effects of litigation from the perspective of the litigants, and has important implications for the theoretical literature on the transformation of disputes.
Acknowledgments
The authors wish to thanks all of the participants in this research. Without their insight and candor, this work would not be possible.
Notes
1. A number of means were used to solicit the 22 in‐depth interviews with survivors. Initially, we made contact with plaintiffs’ attorneys. Most of the cases that had been settled in the Boston sex abuse scandal were handled by a relatively small number of law firms. We began by making contact with one firm which had represented dozens of clients who had settled. We met with the attorneys and explained the purpose of the research, which they endorsed. They agreed to send a letter from the researcher to a random sample of their clients, informing them of the research and inviting their participation. The letter included contact information for the researcher. The researcher’s letter was accompanied by a letter of support from the attorney noting both the voluntariness of the study and the merits of the research. Although this mailing was sent to 100 clients, only five responded and agreed to be interviewed. It became clear that survivors had significant issues of trust and were fiercely protective of their privacy. Subsequently, the researcher met with two members of Voice of the Faithful, a lay Catholic dissent group which sprang out of the clergy sexual abuse crisis in 2002, and which was actively working with survivors. Leaders of the group agreed to ‘spread the word’ about the research to those in the survivor community. This led to interviews with two survivors, both of whom were active in the advocacy community. These subjects were supportive of efforts to study and understand the issues involved in clergy sexual abuse disclosure and litigation, and subsequently sent emails to fellow survivors telling them about the research and expressing their views that the researcher was particularly sensitive to victim issues. After trust was established with these initial interviewees, subsequent interviewees came forth in greater numbers and the research gained momentum. Fifteen additional survivors contacted the researcher for interviews as a result of this snowball sampling procedure. In hindsight, it is not surprising that word‐of‐mouth within the survivor community was more productive than the mailing strategy, given the survivors’ experiences with intimate betrayal (see also Weihe and Richards, Citation1995).
2. Two of the women were not litigants, although one, with the assistance of an attorney intervening on her behalf, had won a settlement to pay retroactively for her therapy. Both of these women were very active in the survivor community, in support groups and advocacy groups that kept them in regular contact with other survivors.
3. Pseudonyms are used to protect the identity of participants.
4. In these cases, only the plaintiff’s attorneys and the Church had access to names.
5. This is a biblical reference: the Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 8, verse 16.