He’s Not Laughing Now: Court Ruling Devastating Blow for Dolan’s Archdiocese

A state appellate court delivered a devastating blow to the Archdiocese of New York in a unanimous decision Tuesday that found the Catholic organization’s longtime insurer can move forward with its case challenging whether its policies covered claims for systemic child sexual abuse that may have been enabled and covered up by church leaders for decades.

Chubb Insurers argued that it has no duty to indemnify or represent the archdiocese in hundreds of lawsuits filed by individuals who were sexually abused by church employees, and that the archdiocese was not providing information that would allow the insurer to properly assess those claims.

The ruling rocked advocates and attorneys who have supported New York’s Child Victims Act and Adult Survivors Act, which had temporarily lifted the statute of limitations to allow alleged victims of sexual abuse to file once time-barred claims against their abusers or the institutions that harbored them.

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