Diocese faces $104 million due.

Byline: Bill Bishop The Register-Guard

The Archdiocese of Portland will end up paying more than $104 million to settle 386 clergy sexual abuse claims filed since 1984 if its bankruptcy reorganization plan is approved after hearings that begin Tuesday in Portland.

The total includes at least 169 claims that have been resolved since the bankruptcy was filed in 2004, but won't be paid unless the reorganization plan is approved, according to court records.

No participant in the litigation is allowed to discuss the case publicly because of a gag order imposed by U.S. District Judge Michael Hogan and Lane County Circuit Judge Lyle Velure, who mediated scores of settlements and helped craft the proposed bankruptcy reorganization plan late last year.

The archdiocese is the first Roman Catholic diocese in the nation to file Chapter 11 bankruptcy on the eve of trials in multimillion-dollar lawsuits alleging child sexual abuse by priests.

If approved, the plan will pay all current claimants who have settled their cases and will set up a $20 million fund for claims that may be filed over the next 22 years.

Additionally, the plan will not require any property of the archdiocese's 124 parishes to be sold to pay claims. If the plan is rejected, the archdiocese and claimants could face a decade-long legal fight over whether parish properties are owned by the archdiocese and may be sold to pay claims.

Since filing for bankruptcy protection, the archdiocese has spent $15 million on legal fees to fight the lawsuits and to set up its bankruptcy plan, according to court records.

The plan appears on track for approval. Court records show that five claimants who have not yet settled their cases will oppose approval, but all other interested parties approve of the plan.

The five claimants charge, among other things, that the plan does not provide enough money to pay them if they win damages in jury trials.

At least 15 sexual abuse claims have settled out of court for an average of $623,000 since the reorganization plan was announced in December, according to court records.

Those claims total $9.35 million and will be paid - if the plan is approved - from a $13.75 million fund set aside for pending claims under the reorganization plan.

That leaves $4.4 million in the fund to pay the remaining five claims, the records show.

Court documents filed by lawyers for the archdiocese note that separate hearings before U.S. District Judge Robert Jones found the total value of the five remaining claims is $100,000 - well below the $4.4 million available to pay them.

However, the claimants argue - among other things - that Jones incorrectly assigned "zero" values for two lawsuits that may be headed for trial after action by the state appeals court.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Elizabeth Perris will hear arguments on the reorganization plan beginning at 9 a.m. Tuesday in her seventh floor courtroom at 1001 S.W. Fifth Ave. in Portland.