Catholic religious order must pay $2.4m to New Orleans clergy abuse survivor

The Guardian

2 days ago

In a historic verdict, a federal jury in New Orleans has ordered a Catholic religious order to pay nearly $2.4m in damages to a man who reported being sexually abused by one of its members in the late 1960s.
John Lousteau asserted that he was sexually abused while attending an overnight summer camp for boys at the Holy Cross school in New Orleans. He maintained that his abuser was the camp's director, Stanley Repucci, who belonged to the Holy Cross order that ran the school.
Lousteau's victory is the first since Louisiana's supreme court in 2024 upheld a state law allowing molestation survivors to pursue civil damages no matter how long ago the abuse had occurred. Previously, Louisiana law barred anyone over age 28 from seeking such damages. Experts have established that the average age an adult reports child sexual abuse was 52.
The verdict is the first in Louisiana to award such high damages to a victim whose abuse went back so many decades.
It also comes as New Orleans's Roman Catholic archdiocese is trying to exit Chapter 11 bankruptcy by offering to pay an average of less than $400,000 apiece to about 600 victims of a clerical abuse scandal that has roiled the organization for decades. The declaration of bankruptcy indefinitely froze individual lawsuits against the archdiocese.
Lousteau's case is not related, but the amount of the award suggests how much abuse survivors might be entitled to if the archdiocese's efforts to reorganize are unsuccessful and it can again be sued by survivors.
In his lawsuit, Lousteau recounted how he had struggled with alcohol and drug addiction after his abuse by Repucci, who has since died. Lousteau previously revealed how he also grappled with post-traumatic stress, depression, anxiety and insomnia, conditions which destined him to what he described as a 'dumpster-fire trainwreck of a life'.
Attorneys for the Holy Cross order and school argued in part that Lousteau failed to do more to limit those consequences.
On Thursday, after a three-day trial, a jury at New Orleans's federal courthouse found there was a preponderance of evidence that Lousteau had been molested as a child by Repucci and that Holy Cross officials – as Repucci's employer while he was alive – owed Lousteau about $2.38m in damages.
Attorneys for the school did not immediately comment. A statement from a Holy Cross spokesperson said it was 'evaluating its options moving forward'. The organizations could ask an appellate court to reduce the award.
Clergy molestation survivors whose claims are ensnared in the New Orleans archdiocese's Chapter 11 financial reorganization could vote in September whether to accept the amounts it is offering, which on average are less than 17% of what Lousteau won at trial against Holy Cross. Attorneys representing hundreds of those survivors oppose the settlement.