ALERT: All Child Abuse Lawsuits have been settled. Millions cashed out???

by What-A-Coincidence 229 Replies latest watchtower child-abuse

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  jgnat

  Gerard, I am very disappointed in your disparaging remarks regarding Kim Norris. Do you share the same sentiments towards Quotes, who decided a protracted battle would have been unhealthy for him personally, as well as his wallet?

  This is a victory, let's not anyone forget that. The WTS, in it's quiet way, have been forced to admit they were wrong. Not only that, they are going to have to pay for it. Not only in this class action suit in California, but for many, many more suits to follow. The precedent has been set.
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  Angharad

  ""I am extremely disapointed on Kimberly Norris, their attorney. I asked her a couple of years ago in this list and she said she would never settle. I guess everyone has a price...lawyers standing on the sidelines are not exeption.""
  
  
  I think that is uncalled for. Kimberly has done good and got a result for the people she was representing - that is her job do to best by her clients. The bad publicity against the WT is secondary to getting closure and compensation for these victims.
  
  This case may not bring the huge headlines lots of people were hoping for, but it opens the door for lots of other cases, to keep chipping away at the WT and hitting them where is hurts most - their bank balance.
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  jgnat

  And, let's not forget, this settlement will force the society to change to minimize their risk exposure. I anticipate:

  • More detailed guidelines and training for elders regarding reporting abuse to the authorites.
  • An attempt by HQ to separate themselves from the actions of individual elders. I suspect this will fail unless they ditch the Flock book and the missives from Headquarters that are to be read-then-shred.
  • If they were smart (I have my doubts), they will carry elder's insurance. More likely they will self-insure through savings and investments. So we might see a sell-off of more properties to settle future abuse cases.
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  JWdaughter

  I am hoping that the WT will get so paranoid that they compel elders to report abuse aggressively. Isn't the ULTIMATE issue here the abuse of the children? Sure, we would all like to see the WT exposed for what it truly is, but if they improved their policies on this, it would be a great improvement. I don't know that it WILL happen, but I sure hope so! Might be interesting to hear the service meetings and such soon-and to see how they are enforcing changes. Obviously there will always be abuse, but ending it ASAP has to be the priority over OUR getting a neener neener over on the WTS.
• 

  garybuss

  What will the Society do? Will they clean up their act? Or will they revise policy to build better firewalls so they can protect the status quo?
  
  What's worse, bad press, or helping damaged people? Because that's really their choice.
  
  At best, with a settlement, all the Society has really bought is time. What will they do with it? This will be an interesting next couple years no doubt. They had 5 years since Dateline. What did they really do? Same thing as always, purge, information control, and denial. How'd that work for em?
  
  On the topic of seeing a settlement as the attorneys copping out. Here in the United States that's not the way it works. The attorney's job is to represent the "best interests" of their clients and to "obey" their clients. The client is the boss, not the attorney.
  
  If an attorney who worked for me posted on a forum that they would settle, that'd be the day I'd fire that attorney. I expect my attorney to say we won't settle, that we'll to go to trial and we'll be prepared to win. But here's the deal, I provide the case, the attorney doesn't, and I have the agenda, the attorney can't.
  
  No attorney representing a client can decide to settle a case. Only the client can make that decision. The attorney gives advise and opinion, but they can't make the decision. Similar to the fact that a surgeon can't make the decision to operate on me.
  
  Most (other) insurance companies settle because they don't want the precedents established by the losses. The Watch Tower had losses all the way. The Watch Tower Society suffered huge losses in these cases at the motion level. The Society lost their own legal department's staff information, the legal department's role in responding to and investigating abuse cases, and Watch Tower legal's records relating to allegations of abuse. That was HUGE!
  
  I'd be proud of the attorney team. They can work for me any day.
  
  
• 

  Simon

  What about prevention?

  I'm glad for that handfull of victims, but what about the children that are being abused right now????

  Can you tell me this outcome is going to save the current and future sexual victims??

  The lawsuits are not about prevention. A victims representative has the responsibility to do just that - represent them and what is best for them. Prevention is another battle for another day ... but it will be affected by the outcome of this case.

  The sad fact is that there will always be some abuses going on in our society and within organisations such as the WTS and the Catholic church. What losing lawsuits does is make it much more important to the organisations involved to get their act together because it hits them financially.

  So, doing a good job for the victim that was represented (and known about, not some 'future unknown') WILL do something to help change how the organisation behaves and surely, this is what we all want?

  The victims representative was not there to represent exJWs or any exJWs personal agenda to satisfy their own desire for revenge for whatever misdeeds the organisation did to them.

  It was all about the victims and the victims became victors. Doing what they did probably took a hell of a lot of bravery and courage.
• 

  Simon

  Oh, and even if someone did win in court, you know how much publicity it would get?

  NOT MUCH.

  You know why?

  BECAUSE NO ONE CARES THE HELL ABOUT JWS OTHER THAN JWS AND EX-JWS.

  It would be a footnote in the news and would be tomorrows chip-paper and quickly forgotten.

  The WTS won't forget they lost money and know stand to lose more if they don't fix-up their broken system though so this WILL potentially affect more change than the publicity IMO.
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  What-A-Coincidence

  Basically we wouldn't be having this conversation about settlements if one the victims was a millionaire/or heir to a fortune? Is this a correct assumption? Yeah, I would take the money. But basically that's the case right? Hell. I would take the money and disseminate information anonymously. That's the WT way.

  Now, wouldn't the defendants be the actual peodophiles and not the WT? Can you sue each one individually?

  It's not about the world recognizing that this is a destructive mind control group ... it's to get the current members to actually THINK!!!
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  144001

  BECAUSE NO ONE CARES THE HELL ABOUT JWS OTHER THAN JWS AND EX-JWS.

  So true, and a point many here seem to miss. To most, JWs are simply a Saturday morning nuisance. Too bad I wasn't included in the "most" category!
• 

  candidlynuts

  people dont care about jw's but people do care about protecting children from sexual abuse. its a hot issue.