San Francisco jury awards clergy sex abuse victim $437,000

Published: 2005-03-30

SAN FRANCISCO (CNS) -- A San Francisco jury awarded $437,000 to Dennis Kavanaugh March 24 in his sex abuse lawsuit against the San Francisco Archdiocese. The archdiocese did not contest Kavanaugh's claim that he was sexually abused as a minor in the early 1970s by a priest of the archdiocese. Of some 800 clergy sex abuse lawsuits filed against the Catholic Church in California during a special one-year window in 2003, Kavanaugh's was the first case to come to a jury verdict. About 700 of the other claims across the state have yet to reach trial or settlement. In January the Orange Diocese settled 90 claims against it for $100 million.

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