• aramis87@fedia.io
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    10 hours ago

    The amount set a new record for abuse cases against school districts in Oklahoma, topping a $5-million settlement reached by Kingfisher Public Schools in 2023. […] the district paid $500,000 from the school’s general fund toward the settlement, while their liability insurance paid $1 million.

    Sounds like they were under-insured. The Catholic Church got away with it by having their insurance pay everything, and then declaring bankruptcy whenever someone went against the Church’s actual assets.

    • bizarroland@lemmy.world
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      9 hours ago

      Which is such bullshit because I remember reading in the early 2000s that the Catholic Church had over $4 trillion in assets, they could afford to settle all of their claims for a fraction of that, a very small fraction of that, less than 1% of that.

      • MangoCats@feddit.it
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        6 hours ago

        You don’t get $4T in assets by giving it away to every altar boy who tattles…

      • aramis87@fedia.io
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        7 hours ago

        The thing that pisses me off is that, back in the late 1970’s / early 1980’s, the Church became aware they had a sex abuse problem and could be held liable. And instead of mocking the priests to places where they couldn’t commit harm, they:

        • Increased their movement of assets away from individual churches and dioceses info separate ownership, so those assets wouldn’t be forfeit in case of lawsuits;

        • Purged a bunch of documentation about abusive priests, shredding, burning, or throwing it away;

        • Moved the documentation that remained to secret local archives supposedly sealed by the confessional and clerical privilege, and then away from local churches and dioceses to the Papal Nunciature (Embassy) in DC where they’re covered by diplomatic immunity;

        • Went out and bought a massive amount of specific insurance to cover any sex abuse claims that might arise - and got a very cheap price for it, too.

        • Continued their practice of moving abusive priests between dioceses and parishes, denying there was a problem to anyone who might ask and giving those priests the opportunity to give other victims.

        Probably other shitty stuff, but those are the points I remember offhand (and it’s more than enough). They never cared about their victims, only preserving their money and power.

        • MangoCats@feddit.it
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          6 hours ago

          Over a thousand years of experience in legal maneuvering, they existed before the laws and watched them form over the years.

          They’ve got the asset strategy down pat, what they’ve never had a handle on is their human factors - since we’re all such flawed and sinful individuals, and they have a tendency to recruit from the damaged end of society to start with… denial is their weapon of choice against the Devil.

        • grue@lemmy.world
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          6 hours ago

          Never mind Citizens United; the fact that corporate entities (and yes, churches count) are able to do shit like this just proves that they’ve been out of control going way further back.

          Limited liability, as a concept, is a moral hazard. It should be abolished in all but a very limited set of circumstances where it serves the public’s (not the shareholders’ or any other private entity’s) interest.

        • Optional@lemmy.world
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          3 hours ago

          There are no Epstein files.

          Er, I mean, it’s a hoax.

          That is, only Epstein is in the Epstein files.

          Signed, Epstein’s mom.