The Roman Catholic Diocese of Helena filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on 31 January 2014 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Montana, covering 362 claims of clergy sexual abuse spanning decades, most of it at Ursuline Academy and St. Ignatius Mission in St. Ignatius, Montana, from the 1930s through the 1970s. Rather than protracted litigation, the diocese reached the settlement through confidential mediation, spending fewer than three hours actually in court over the thirteen months the case took. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Terry L. Myers confirmed the reorganization plan on 4 March 2015 at a hearing in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, calling it a "singular achievement." Contemporaneous reporting gives two figures for the resulting victim trust: the Spokesman-Review states approximately 20 million dollars, built from 14.4 million from the diocese's insurers and 4.45 million from the Ursuline Sisters of the Western Province, with the remainder from diocesan contributions and a reserve for future claimants; the Helena Independent Record states the plan provided 21 million dollars. More than 360 claimants were compensated, each guaranteed a minimum payment of 2,500 dollars.
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Kind of Record JurisdictionDistrict of Montana, United States (U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Judge Terry L. Myers) 1 Publication Year Period Covered, FromContemporaneous reporting places most of the covered abuse at Ursuline Academy and St. Ignatius Mission "from the 1930s through the 1970s"; 1930 is the start of the stated span. Period Covered, ToClose of the "1930s through the 1970s" span the cited reporting gives for the covered abuse. Documented Findings
Victim EstimateReported as more than 360 abuse claims, out of 362 originally filed against the diocese; the figure comes from contemporaneous reporting on the plan's confirmation. Key FindingHelena's case is a notably efficient outlier among the wave of American diocesan bankruptcies: reached through confidential mediation with claimants' attorneys rather than adversarial litigation, it took thirteen months from filing to confirmation with fewer than three hours actually spent in open court, a pace both press accounts contrast with the multi-year insurer disputes that stretched other dioceses' cases. 1 Cross-Tradition Connections
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