Jehovah's Witnesses to settle sex-abuse case - San Diego Reader (California, US), Friday, January 12, 2018

by darkspilver 104 Replies latest watchtower child-abuse

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  John Davis

  As for the Conti case. The case went to verdict and the jury awarded 23 or 28 million. The judge upon review lowered it to 13 million I think. The case was then appealed to the 1st district court of appeals. The court ruled that Watchtower had no duty to warn nor a duty to protect because there is no fiduciary responsibility between congregants and Watchtower. The court of appeals found that there was enough evidence that a jury could find guilty that abuse occurred during congregation sponsored events and awarded Conti 2+ million. The court found that it is only during sponsored events can Watchtower be held liable for the actions of others if those actions occurred under the direction of a watchtower agent, such as in the Conti case where an elder assigned Kendrick to be in service with Conti.

  Even in the instant case, Zalkin was spending so much time to prove that the abuse occurred during "Bible Study" because that would be a sponsored event. Lopez testimony was not clear and was, in fact, contradicting himself because it wasn't clear what the activities were occurring when the abuse happened.
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  Bobby2446

  As I recall, it was 21 million plus 8 in putative, reduced to 8, and then probably less than 2 million ( I do not believe the settlement amount was ever disclosed)

  relatively speaking, she nearly walked away with nothing.
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  John Davis

  In the Conti case there was not a settlement it was following the appeal. The appeals court ruled that the final amount was just a little over 2 million.
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  Vidiot

  Settlements or not, the Org never comes out of these things looking like the good guys, or champions of "religious freedom" (see what I did there?).

  And any bit of dollar drain can't help but help... the dialed-up donation demands and property liquidation show that.

  IMO, a hundred piranhas can inflict way more lasting damage than a single shark.
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  JaniceA

  When you see a lot of smoke, there is a fire.

  When you see people wading through waist high water in the street, you know there is a flood.

  When you see a religion who formerly bragged about never asking for donations because doing so would indicate they no longer had God's blessing,asking for donations while they are reducing property holdings, branches, support personnel and their numbers are no longer increasing in impressive numbers. . . While they are being investigated/castigated for their handling of child abuse cases. and publicly called out for their treatment of victims. . .well there are many reasons that they have more month at the end of their money. It's not just the child abuse, but that sure does justify, for many, their lack of financial support to the central org. One used to be able to support local needs only, but the org is taking from that pot too now.

  Even if they aren't paying out stupendous amounts of hush money, it's still too much and consequently they have lost the absolute confidence of their monied followers in the west. Many who still believe the doctrine overall (inexplicably) are recognizing that the org might not be a paragon. They may continue to attend but are unwilling to support its "work" at the expense of their families and futures anymore. They are turning into secular JWs. Secular Christians are selling unused churches to be redeveloped into condos, schools and mosques. Kingdom halls are being sold for the same reasons. Not enough butts in the seats. More importantly, not enough donations in the anonymous boxes at the back of the hall.

  This child abuse case is just one payout that made the news. How many are quietly settled with no court documents?
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  Bobby2446

  Vidiot — you need to grasp this simple truth — settlements have no winners or losers. Neither side looks good as I articulated yesterday. The plaintiff appears to have a weak case and are in danger of not recovering any damages, and the defendant appears to have something it wants to keep hidden.

  The money paid is nothing compared to keeping the case out of the negative news media. Long and short term, a settled case with confidentiality attached benefits the defendant. The plaintiff gets paid and has a measure of peace. Another benefit is that future litigants don’t know how much the other side is willing to pay, so they will only accept what they need or want.

  The WT recently made about a billion dollars, some of which funded the new HQ with money to spare, and not to mention at MINIMUM (if each JW donated dollar a week) 34 million a month in donations.

  What they possibly could pay out in settlements, they receive 100 fold in donations, so that’s not going to drain them in and of itself.

  The only way to drain them is for a government to literally steal their money.

  So basically its mere wishful thinking on your part, or better yet, delusion.
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  pepperheart

  bobby why do you assume that just somebody is a jw on paper that

  a they want to be there

  b they give any money at all

  Stephen letts said in 2015 they had ,ore money going out than coming in

  and since 2012 acording to the watchtowers own website they have been making cuts
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  Bobby2446

  Pepperheart,

  It’s high time for you to stop believing everything you read on the Internet.

  His comments about more going out then coming in, was in reference to the projects they have planned, not organizational operating expenses.

  Any organization with half a brain establishes budgets for certain aspects of it. If funds allocated for project X are running low, they do a fundraiser. That broadcast was basically a Fundraiser for the slate of projects they have planned.

  Also, the reduction in printing, naturally result in a reduction in personnel.

  This is really simple stuff.
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  sparrowdown

  IMO, I doubt whether the money WT has paid out so far amounts to coffee money for them. They could probably afford to keep paying out victims in dribs and drabs like that forever most likely have even accounted for it.

  Their brand would have to take a major hit for any real damage to occur. A hit they couldn't recover from. A massive class action possibly. One that exposed their culty ways in detail in HD on news screens everywhere for a couple of months so their name became synonymous with weirdo cult in a big way, far bigger than what we've seen so far, maybe? Reports about coruption or a tax exempt scandal could take them out.
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  Bobby2446

  Trust me, 4000 dollars a day is coffee money.

  They probably cut their printing budget in half, don’t have the expensive buildings in NY to mainatain, and have already finished building Warwick.