Jury rules Montana clergy members must pay compensation to abuse survivor

A jury has ruled that Jehovah’s Witnesses must pay $35 million to a woman who was sexually abused by a congregation member when she was a child.

The now-21-year-old woman says the church’s national organization covered-up the crime by ordering Montana clergy members not to report her sexual abuse.

A judge must now review the penalty following the jury’s verdict.

The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York – the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ national organization — says it plans to appeal the ruling.

The woman’s attorney, Neil Smith, says Wednesday’s verdict carries a clear message to the church regarding the handling of child abuse cases and reporting crimes to outside authorities.

“Hopefully that message is loud enough that this will cause the organization to change its priorities in a way that they will begin prioritizing the safety of children so that other children aren’t abused in the future,” Smith said in a statement on Thursday.

According to Breitbart, The Office of Public Information at the World Headquarters of Jehovah’s Witnesses responded to the ruling with an unsigned statement.

“Jehovah’s Witnesses abhor child abuse and strive to protect children from such acts. Watchtower is pursuing appellate review,” it stated.

The Montana case is just one of the dozens that have been recorded nationwide over the past decade alleging Jehovah’s Witnesses covered-up or mismanaged the sexual abuse of children.

The case that urged Wednesday’s ruling involved two women, now 32 and 21, who allege a family member sexually abused them and a third family member in Thompson Falls in the 1990s and 2000s.

The women say they reported the abuse to church elders, who handled the incident internally after consulting with the national organization.

The elders ousted the abuser from the congregation in 2004 then reinstated him the next year, the lawsuit states, and the abuse of the girl, who is now 21, continued.

The lawsuit maintained that the local and national Jehovah’s Witnesses organizations were negligent and violated a Montana law that requires them to report abuse to outside authorities.

“Their national headquarters, called Watchtower, they control when and if anyone within their organization reports child abuse,” Smith said.

“Watchtower instructed everyone involved that they were not to report the matter to authorities.”

Lawyers for the Jehovah’s Witnesses said in court documents that Montana law exempts elders from reporting “internal ecclesiastical proceedings on a congregation member’s serious sin.”

The church also contended that the national organization isn’t liable for the actions by Thompson Falls elders, and that too much time has passed for the women to sue.

The jury granted the 21-year-old woman $4 million for her injuries, plus $30 million in punitive damages against Watchtower and $1 million in punitive damages against the Christian Congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses, another Jehovah’s Witness corporation that communicates with congregations across the U.S.

The monetary award must be reviewed by the trial judge and could be decreased.

A Montana law caps punitive damage awards at 3 percent of a company’s net worth or $10 million, whichever is less.

A legal challenge to that law is pending before the Montana Supreme Court.

The jury dismissed claims that the church should have reported the second woman’s abuse by the same congregation member.

Jurors decided church elders did not receive notice of the 32-year-old woman’s abuse in 1998 as she said they did and therefore did not have a duty to tell authorities.

The third family member who claimed abuse was not a plaintiff in the lawsuit.

The victims of these sex crimes have not been named.