Following the April decision of United States District Judge for the District of Connecticut Robert N. Chatigny that denied the motions to dismiss of the defendants, Simmons Hanly Conroy attorneys Paul Hanly and Jayne Conroy, working with Boston lead counsel Mitchell Garabedian and Bill Gordon, together with Connecticut counsel Steven Errante and Marisa Belair, negotiated a landmark settlement of 24 consolidated sex abuse cases alleging negligent supervision of convicted pedophile Douglas Perlitz. The settlement, paid by defendants the Society of Jesus of New England, Fairfield University, the Order of Malta, Hope Carter and Father Paul Carrier, was to settle claims that the defendants did not properly supervise the activities of Douglas Perlitz in his running of a school for underprivileged boys in Cap Haitien, Haiti from the late 1990s until around 2010, during which time he raped and otherwise sexually abused dozens of victims. Twenty-four victims joined in the lawsuit brought by Simmons Hanly Conroy and co-counsel in 2011 in federal court in Connecticut. The settlement was in the amount of $12,000,000.00, resulting in a per-victim payment of $500,000.00 gross and attorneys’ fees of $3,600,000.00. Payment of the $12 million was made at the end of June 2013. The cases were captioned under lead case Joseph Jean-Charles v. Douglas Perlitz et al., 3:11-CV-00614-RNC (D. Conn. 2013).
