Part 6 of a series on lawsuits alleging sexual abuse coverups by Mormon officials.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has filed an appeal after losing a lawsuit against insurance companies regarding more than $27 million in legal defense costs and $32 million in child sex abuse settlement payments to West Virginia families.
The church, commonly called the Mormon church, filed the appeal in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, based in Denver, Colorado, on April 25, about four weeks after the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah ruled in favor of two insurers who refused to reimburse the church’s legal defense and settlement costs in West Virginia.
FLOODLIT.org previously broke the story regarding the scale of the West Virginia lawsuit and the church’s efforts to recover around $90 million from its insurers.
The Mormon church has not published a list of sex offenders in its ranks, but FLOODLIT has learned of hundreds of civil lawsuits alleging that Mormon officials covered up or failed to report sexual abuse to legal authorities.
Since 1990, the church has paid at least $51 million to plaintiffs in sex abuse lawsuits. Settlement amounts in such cases are typically kept confidential via non-disclosure agreements.
FLOODLIT’s free public database contains records on over 4,000 reports of sexual abuse by Mormon church members, including at least 73 convicted former bishops.
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- page 1 of 3 from Mormon church appeal
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- page 2 of 3 from Mormon church appeal
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- page 3 of 3 from Mormon church appeal
You can support FLOODLIT’s efforts to obtain and publish court documents in Mormon sex abuse cases by donating or getting involved.
