‘Our Work In the News’ Section

Weyerhaeuser to appeal jury decision in class action lawsuit claiming unlawful monopoly

CNNMoney.com

NEW YORK (Associated Press) - Weyerhaeuser Co. said late Monday it plans to appeal a jury decision in a class action lawsuit claiming that the forest products company unlawfully monopolized a market for finished alder lumber.

Weyerhaeuser said a jury in Portland, Ore., awarded the plaintiffs about $28 million.

"We are very disappointed with the verdict," said Sandy D. McDade, senior vice president and general counsel in a statement. "Our business conduct has been and remains within the spirit and letter of the law, and we will continue to vigorously defend this case."

Weyerhaeuser shares fell $1.20 to $64.97 in morning trading.

In a surprise move Tuesday, Portland Archbishop John Vlazny released 2,000 pages of documents on priests accused of sexually abusing Oregon children.

Vlazny described the release in a statement as "part of the healing process and in the interest of transparency."

Bud Bunce, a spokesman for the Archdiocese of Portland, said the release had nothing to do with Pope Benedict XVI’s trip to the United States or the pope’s apology for the priest sexual abuse scandal.

ortland attorneys who have filed sexual abuse suits against the archdiocese said they were baffled by the unscheduled release, which comes less than two weeks after one round of failed mediation and a day before another is set to start.

"I don’t know how the archdiocese thinks," said attorney Kelly Clark, who represents dozens of people who say they were sexually abused by priests. "I just don’t get it."

Erin Olson, another plaintiff’s attorney who is scheduled to begin mediation today, also said she has no idea what was in the new batch of documents. But Olson said she doubts the release includes documents that name priests who haven’t been identified and are still working in parishes.

In 2004, the Portland archdiocese became the first in the country to seek bankruptcy protection from priest sexual abuse litigation. A 2007 settlement plan set aside about $70 million for priest accusers. And Vlazny promised to release church personnel files involving abusive priests.

The archdiocese released a batch of documents a few months later, but lawyers for the church and plaintiffs’ attorneys have been fighting over what else to release ever since.

In his statement, Vlazny explained that he opposed releasing documents involving priests where the accusations were weak or uncorroborated.

"We have made what we believe is a fair decision on document disclosure based on sound guiding principles and will continue on this course," Vlazny wrote. "We hope that the continuing release of documents in the spirit of healing and reconciliation will bring peace to the lives of those who have been harmed."

To read the documents, go to www.archdiocesedocuments.org/Documents.html

You can reach Ashbel S. (Tony) Green at 503-221-8202 or by e-mail at tonygreen@news.oregonian.com.

Associated Press

PORTLAND, Ore. -- A year after the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Portland settled its bankruptcy case for about $50 million, it has released more of its files on priests accused of sex abuse -- including some confidential personnel records.

The documents were expected to be released shortly after the settlement. But negotiations over the release stalled, sending the church and lawyers for the victims back to federal bankruptcy court.

An attorney for some of the alleged abuse victims criticized the latest release as piecemeal and said the archdiocese failed to provide any explanation or tie the documents together in a meaningful way for victims or the public.

"This is not the way to do it," said Kelly Clark. "This is how you do it if you want to frustrate that purpose."

Clark also said that releasing the documents out of context makes it look like the church did not find out about the alleged abuse in many cases until much later than it actually received complaints.

Mediation sessions on the release have been continuing before both sides were scheduled to head to U.S. District Judge Michael Hogan to ask for a decision. Hogan was one of two judges who mediated the settlement.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Elizabeth Perris sealed most of the documents after the archdiocese became the first Catholic diocese in the nation to file for bankruptcy protection in July 2004.

She has scheduled hearings for arguments on lifting her order but is not expected to rule until October.

Archbishop John Vlazny says he authorized the release of about 2,000 pages of additional documents on Tuesday as "part of the healing process and in the interest of transparency."

By Pete Springer

OPB.com

Portland, OR
February 25, 2008

Negotiations to release documents related to the Portland Archdiocese clergy sex abuse cases have broken down and will likely end up in mediation next month. Pete Springer reports.

Attorney Kelly Clark is representing more than a hundred abuse victims. He says nearly a year after reaching a legal settlement with the Archdiocese of Portland, very few documents have actually been released.

Clark says the release of the documents was key to settling the sex abuse lawsuits.

Kelly Clark: “We want the public to be able to learn what the archdiocese of Portland knew about sex abuse and when they knew it.  That’s all we’re saying, release the documents you said you’d release.”

However, there is no specific deadline for releasing these documents.

A spokesman for the archdiocese says they haven’t released everything because some of the documents are under a protective order and contain names and medical records of priests not involved in the lawsuit.

Clark withdrew from negotiations with the Archdiocese after it requested full names of abuse victims -- rather than just initials -- be used in court documents.  

The case heads back to court in March and will enter mediation in April.

A Northwest Portland couple who won $750,000 in damages in the first trial of a Measure 37 property development claim saw it disappear Thursday when a judge dismissed the case.

The ruling may foreshadow the fate of several pending land-use lawsuits.

Judge Jerry Hodson of Multnomah County Circuit Court essentially reversed himself. He had ruled in November after a six-day trial that county and state land-use laws restricted the use of Larry and Laura Luethe’s property and reduced its value.

The couple filed a Measure 37 claim in 2005, seeking to build a nine-lot subdivision off Northwest Skyline Boulevard under rules that existed when they acquired the property in 1973. Multnomah County turned them down, so the couple filed suit in 2006.

The case went to trial in November 2007, and the judge initially ruled in their favor. But Hodson ruled Thursday that Measure 49, which rolled back development rights allowed under the earlier measure, could be applied retroactively and made the Luethe’s case moot.

Voters approved Measure 49 in November, and it took effect Dec. 6.

"I recognize the seeming unfairness of applying a new law to a party who has relied upon existing law in a pending action," Hodson wrote. Nonetheless, the ballot language of Measure 49 clearly intended it to be applied retroactively to Measure 37 cases, he said.

The Oregon Supreme Court has ruled in other cases that the Legislature may retroactively amend state statute, the judge said.

The law firm representing the Luethes called the ruling a disappointment. The judge’s opinion was based on Supreme Court rulings that don’t apply to the Luethes’ "unique circumstances," attorney Mark O’Donnell said in a news release. He said the decision is ripe for appeal.

Larry Luethe said he didn’t know what to make of the judge’s decision. "He was in our favor all along, then all of a sudden -- bingo -- he rules against us."

Attorneys for the state and county filed motions asking Hodson to dismiss the Luethe case after Measure 49 took effect. He sided with them.

Similar rulings might await several other pending Measure 37 lawsuits, said Ralph Bloemers, an attorney with CRAG law center in Portland. Measure 37 claimants are "being encouraged to throw good money after bad" in pursuing their claims, he said.

They should proceed under the development standards allowed under Measure 49, he said.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - A Multnomah County judge has ruled against a Portland couple in a land-use case that could be a taste of things to come in Oregon’s long-running struggle with the issue.

In a rare decision that may be one of the last salvos of the Measure 37 property-rights battle, a Multnomah County judge ruled Wednesday that county and state land-use laws had restricted the use of a couple’s rural Northwest Portland property and reduced its value by $750,000.

Attorneys representing Larry and Laura Luethe, who sought to build a nine-lot subdivision off Northwest Skyline Boulevard, said the county and state must either pay the damage amount or waive the zoning that kept the Luethes from developing the property. The state and county must pay the couple’s attorney fees and court costs in either case, attorneys Stephen Crew and Kristian Roggendorf said.

Larry Luethe, 63, a retired excavator, said battling the land- use system for the past couple of years has been extremely frustrating. He and his wife, who had not spent time in a courtroom before the weeklong trial, welcomed the decision by Judge Jerry Hodson.

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Posted by The Oregonian

November 15, 2007

In a rare decision that may be one of the last salvos of the Measure 37 property rights battle, a Multnomah County judge ruled Wednesday that county and state land use laws restricted a couple’s use of their rural Northwest Portland property and reduced its value by $750,000.

Attorneys representing Larry and Laura Luethe, who wanted to build a nine-lot subdivision off Northwest Skyline Boulevard, said the county and state must pay the damage amount or waive the zoning regulation that kept the Luethes from developing the property.

The case is significant because it emerged from the murky legal ground separating Measure 37, the 2004 property rights measure, and Measure 49, the revision approved by voters in the Nov. 6 election. Measure 49 drastically rolled back development rights, prohibiting the large subdivisions and industrial and commercial development that many property owners had sought to build under Measure 37.

Under Measure 49, claimants will be limited to three homesites, or four to 10 if they can prove by appraisal that land use laws sufficiently devalued their property.
-- Eric Mortenson
ericmortenson@news.oregonian.com

The Oregonian

Sunday, October 28, 2007

The Portland Archdiocese has lost its mind.

As if determined to prove it has learned nothing from past sins, and those of its priests, the archdiocese is demanding that a new group claiming to be victims of clergy abuse should be compelled to abandon their pseudonyms and go public with their identities.

Only last June, Catholic Archbishop John Vlazny apologized for the burdens carried by "the victims of sexual abuse" and conceded, "By our reluctance to bring light to this great darkness, we as a people have sinned."

The time for penance and reconciliation, apparently, has ended. This legal maneuver is an exasperating move to bully these plaintiffs and intimidate future ones.

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