The program was introduced by Timothy Cardinal Dolan in 2016, three years before the Child Victims Act passed, and was intended as a way for survivors of abuse to reach a settlement without hiring a lawyer. Participants in the program waived their right to pursue legal action against the archdiocese for the abuse.

“Cardinal Dolan did do a bishop’s reconciliation a few years back and he didn’t use the insurance company’s money, he used the church’s money,” said McKenna of SNAP, referring to the Independent Reconciliation and Compensation Program. “That was actually good for the victims. They didn’t have to relive the abuse. They didn’t have to wait years and years.”

Chubb is the insurer on about 60% of the unsettled claims that went to litigation, said sources, which are valued at $859 million.

But Chubb filed suit against the archdiocese in Manhattan Supreme Court in June 2023, arguing that the payouts to survivors are outside the scope of what insurance should actually cover.

“The ADNY and the CJCC know that insurance policies cover damages from accidents. You can’t buy insurance for intended acts the ADNY has admitted: concealing, tolerating and abetting child molestation, which continued for decades because of the ADNY’s cover-up and its unconscionable failure to stop the abuse when it had the knowledge and opportunity to do so,” a representative for Chubb said. “That’s what this case is about.”

In October, the archdiocese tried to have the case dismissed. Lawyers from firm Blank Rome, representing the archdiocese, wrote that “Chubb’s heavy-handed conduct highlights that this lawsuit is a tactical maneuver in what appears to be a nationwide corporate decision to walk away from sexual abuse claims from California to New York."

Supreme Court Justice Suzanne Adams dismissed the case in December, but a unanimous ruling in state appellate court on April 23 found that the insurance company can proceed in its case against the archdiocese.

Enter the coalition

Amid the legal fighting, the coalition took out a full-page ad in The New York Times in November writing “Chubb has callously chosen to resist, delay, and deny restitution to survivors, all in a cynical effort to safeguard its bottom line.”

In January, the group sent a letter to New York Attorney General Letitia James urging her office to look into not only Chubb’s “conspiracy to defraud child victims act survivors," but the insurance industry’s conduct as a whole.

...continued

©2024 New York Daily News. Visit nydailynews.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.