L.A. Judge to Oversee Sex Abuse Civil Suits

A Los Angeles judge was named Tuesday to preside over all civil cases alleging sexual abuse by Roman Catholic priests in Southern California.

California Chief Justice Ronald M. George’s selection of Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Marvin M. Lager Jr. ends weeks of delay in the litigation process caused when the first judge was disqualified.

“It moves it forward,” said attorney Venus Soltan, who petitioned George to appoint one judge to oversee all of the cases. “We are not going to be sitting around anymore.”

J. Thomas Hennigan, attorney for the the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, said he also hopes the new judge will speed up resolution of the cases.

“We are anxious to get this thing moving,” he said.

Both sides were happy with George’s choice. Hennigan described Lager, a judge since 1994, as young and bright, and said Lager “likes to wrestle with complex legal issues.”

Soltan said it’s a plus that Lager has worked on the mediation panel of the court’s complex litigation departments.

Lawyers have been working toward a resolution of hundreds of claims even before Jan. 1, when a new state law eliminated the statute of limitations in child molestation cases for one year, creating a potential avalanche of new suits based on old abuse allegations.

Attorneys warned last month that the process had stalled because there was no judge to make critical calls on discovery disputes, such as the kinds of personnel documents the archdiocese would have to make available to plaintiffs on various priests accused of misconduct.

Soltan and attorney John Manly broke ranks last month and filed 10 lawsuits against the dioceses of Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego, saying they were tired of waiting for officials to produce those documents.

Church officials have said they plan to assert a constitutional right of religious freedom to stop the exchange of priest personnel files that may include admissions of child sexual abuse by priests to their superiors.

Church officials have made the same argument in criminal court. A retired judge, Thomas Nuss, is considering whether the archdiocese must provide records to county prosecutors.

Over the church’s objections, another judge, Elihu Berle, ruled last month that all suits alleging sexual abuse by priests in San Diego and San Bernardino counties will be litigated before one judge in Los Angeles.