Claude Solnik
Long Island Business News
2150 Smithtown Ave.
Ronkonkoma, NY 11779-7348
Home > LI Confidential > Stop scratching on holidays
Stop scratching on holidays
Published: June 1, 2012
Off Track Betting in New York State has been racing into a crisis called shrinking revenue. Some people have spitballed a solution: Don’t close on holidays.
New York State Racing Law bars racing on Christmas, Easter and Palm Sunday, and the state has ruled OTBs can’t handle action on those days, even though they could easily broadcast races from out of state.
“You should be able to bet whenever you want,” said Jackson Leeds, a Nassau OTB employee who makes an occasional bet. He added some irrefutable logic: “How is the business going to make money if you’re not open to take people’s bets?”
Elias Tsekerides, president of the Federation of Hellenic Societies of Greater New York, said OTB is open on Greek Orthodox Easter and Palm Sunday.
“I don’t want discrimination,” Tsekerides said. “They close for the Catholics, but open for the Greek Orthodox? It’s either open for all or not open.”
OTB officials have said they lose millions by closing on Palm Sunday alone, with tracks such as Gulfstream, Santa Anita, Turf Paradise and Hawthorne running.
One option: OTBs could just stay open and face the consequences. New York City OTB did just that back in 2003. The handle was about $1.5 million – and OTB was fined $5,000.
ADVERTISEMENT
Facing 200 Abuse Claims, Diocese Becomes U.S.’s Largest to Seek Bankruptcy
The move by the Diocese of Rockville Centre on Long Island came after numerous lawsuits were filed under the Child Victims Act.
Facing more than 200 lawsuits over sexual abuse allegations, the Diocese of Rockville Centre on Long Island said on Thursday that it filed for bankruptcy, the largest Roman Catholic diocese in the United States to do so.
The diocese, which serves about 1.5 million Catholics, said it was seeking financial protection in part because of the passage of New York State’s Child Victims Act, which allows adults who were victims of sexual assault as children to file claims.
The diocese determined that it “was not going to be able to carry out its spiritual, charitable and educational missions” in the face of “the increasing burden of litigation expenses,” Bishop John O. Barres said in a video message.
The bankruptcy declaration could in some cases limit potential financial compensation to people who have brought or will bring claims against the diocese.
In addition to mounting legal costs, the diocese’s financial issues were exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic, Bishop Barres said.
In its federal bankruptcy court filing, the diocese said that about 40 percent of its annual revenue typically comes from offertory collections at its parishes. Those donations plummeted after Sunday Mass services were suspended, then restricted, as a result of the outbreak.
More than 20 Catholic dioceses have filed for bankruptcy over the past 16 years, according to BishopAccountability.org, which tracks sexual abuse cases in the church. The Rockville Centre diocese, the eighth largest in the country by population, is believed to be the biggest to do so.
Two more of the state’s eight Roman Catholic dioceses have also filed for bankruptcy. The Diocese of Rochester became the first in New York to do so last year, and the Diocese of Buffalo, the largest in upstate New York, followed suit earlier this year. Both dioceses also cited the Child Victims Act.
The law, which was passed by state lawmakers last year amid strenuous opposition from the Catholic Church, created a temporary “look-back window” that suspended the statute of limitations on childhood sexual abuse accusations.
During the window, which was set to close after a year but was extended until January after the pandemic limited court services, victims of sexual abuse could file lawsuits against their abusers and related organizations or institutions.
According to documents filed in federal bankruptcy court, 223 cases filed against the Diocese of Rockville Centre were still pending in civil courts as of Tuesday.
Those lawsuits will now likely be frozen and swept under the supervision of bankruptcy court, where the focus will shift to the diocese’s financial assets.
Rather than having their individual cases litigated in court, current plaintiffs and any future claimants would become creditors and would be eligible for a portion of a settlement fund negotiated by a committee of abuse survivors.
Marie T. Reilly, a law professor at Pennsylvania State University who has studied Catholic organization bankruptcies, said that the end result would be to effectively release the diocese from any cases that might be revived.
“The whole goal of the diocese is to open a new chapter in its financial life, free of Child Victims Act claims,” Ms. Reilly said.
A similar strategy has been used by other organizations, both Catholic and non-religious, affected by the Child Victims Act and similar laws. The Boy Scouts of America, which faced a deluge of sexual-abuse lawsuits, filed for federal bankruptcy in Delaware earlier this year.
Jeff Anderson, a lawyer who represents alleged abuse victims in 73 of those cases, said the move would deny a jury trial to victims and limit their ability to unearth private documents through discovery.
In some cases, plaintiffs could receive smaller financial settlements than they might have been awarded in a civil trial, Mr. Anderson said.
Ms. Reilly, the law professor, said that others, particularly those whose cases were slower to proceed, could receive more than they would have recouped in civil court.
In his statement, Bishop Barres said that the diocese thought that Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection would be a more fair way to address the cases, rather than litigating them piecemeal.
“Our goal is to make sure that all clergy sexual abuse survivors, and not just a few who were first to file lawsuits, are afforded just and equitable compensation,” he said.
Mr. Anderson, who has represented plaintiffs in other bankruptcy cases involving Catholic organizations, also said that defendants often used bankruptcy proceedings in an effort to conceal records from the public’s attention.
“We believe it is to deny the survivors a full accountability and to keep them from having to make a full and complete and transparent record of their practices,” he said.
The diocese said in its court filings that it has already paid roughly $62 million to settle about 350 cases under its Independent Reconciliation and Compensation program, which was created before the Child Victims Act to provide monetary settlements to victims of clergy sexual abuse whose cases could no longer be prosecuted or litigated.
Adam Horowitz, a lawyer representing a victim in one of those cases, said his client had signed a settlement last week under that program. Under the agreement, the man was supposed to be paid next week, but that will now be delayed.
”In the course of events, no one said, ‘Hey we’re going to be filing bankruptcy this week,’” Mr. Horowitz said. “We’re told he’s not going to be paid, and so he’ll have to get in line with other creditors and claimants in the bankruptcy court.”
