Winona-Rochester survivors of abuse win $30M settlement

After decades of fighting to obtain justice, 145 people who were sexually abused by Catholic clergy and staff in the Diocese of Winona-Rochester will be paid $30 million in a settlement agreement reached with the largest insurer of the diocese.

"This is a breakthrough and powerful moment in time in getting justice for survivors," said Jeff Anderson, whose law firm, Jeff Anderson & Associates, represented the sexual abuse survivors.

Anderson told MPR News the settlement with the United States Fire Insurance Company covers incidents of abuse dating back to the early 1960s, and some of the survivors began filing claims against the diocese back in the early 1980s.

"I am so proud to stand with these courageous survivors — to have first put it to the bishops, and now to the insurance industry that has refused to abide by their obligations to the survivors and to the bishops themselves," Anderson said. "Today is a powerful day in that journey, and it feels like it's closing a circle that began in 1982."

Crum & Forster, United States Fire Insurance Company's parent company, did not respond to MPR News' request for comment Thursday.

The scores of lawsuits filed against it forced the diocese to file for bankruptcy in 2018. The diocese then agreed to pay $28 million to the 145 abuse survivors in a settlement reached back in 2021, but that agreement did not include any payment from the Catholic diocese's largest insurer, United States Fire. Anderson said United States Fire and other insurance companies have gone to great lengths to avoid paying claims in these and other similar lawsuits, and he accused them of dodging their financial obligations.

But after years of legal wrangling, recent jury verdicts in favor of three of the survivors tipped the scales and led U.S. Fire to agree to a settlement ahead of another trial on the abuse cases that was slated to begin Sept. 28.

Anderson said this win marks a breakthrough not only in Minnesota but across the country. He said for years, the insurance industry has been sidestepping its responsibility in these cases. Now, new precedent has been set that could shift how these kinds of cases are tried moving forward.

"Every insurance company in the country and every survivor with whom we're working have been watching this case to see what would happen, and now that it's happened, there is a real reckoning," Anderson said. "It's a long time in coming, but it is the long arc of justice. This is historic."

The Diocese of Winona-Rochester's Vicar General William Thompson told MPR News that now that United States Fire Insurance has honored its obligations, all future litigation stemming from its bankruptcy has been concluded.

Thompson said the diocese is committed its "Safe Environment Program," which works to ensure the safety of children, vulnerable adults and young people who have been entrusted to its care in its parishes, schools, religious education classes and other ministry programs.

"All are invited to pray for the healing of those impacted by sexual abuse and to work toward that healing to the best of their ability," Thompson said.

The three survivors who came forward to fight for this insurance settlement in court include two men who were abused by Fr. Joseph Cashman while they were students at Lourdes High School in Rochester in the 1970s, and a man who was 13 when he was abused by a volunteer, Eugene Herbert — known as "Brother Gene" at St. Mary's Parish and School — in the early '70s.