I wouldn't have a problem if McKenna did settle. It might be the best outcome in the situation in which case I wish her the best. I can understand the sentiment of wanting this to go to trial but in many ways her doing what she has already has made a big difference.
If it does goes to a jury trial I would be curious to see how it went. There would obviously be Mormons on the jury that would be unavoidable, but I don't think that necessarily determines the end result. I'm not sure how members would react to seeing their Church hide behind clergy confidentiality after they released details of her Church discipline and her adoption publicly.
This case reminds me of three cases of sexual abuse, but all of those cases involved children. The claim of the Church protecting sexual predators is consistent in all of them and two are from around the same time period. Two of them resulted in settlements and I'm guessing that the third one did too but I haven't found it reported.
The first is the case of Mitchell Blake Young. He was sent home from his mission due to him molesting children there meaning his Church leaders were aware of it and did nothing. At home he was convicted of abusing children but his Bishop pleaded with the Court to not give him a prison sentence offering to supervise him. He moved to another ward. Then his father and bishop had the great idea of trying to cure him by setting him up with a single mother without telling her about his history of abuse. He was later convicted of further abuse including her child and the civil case involved the LDS Church for its involvement in presenting him as a good member knowing his history of abuse. I have no idea how this case ended.
The next case was that of Franklyn Curtis, again involving child abuse by a member that the Church knew was a pedophile when they withheld that information from a family with children. The mother specifically asked the bishop about him moving in and the Bishop failed to warn her. The Church paid $3 million, but their spokesperson said the claim had no merit and the only reason they paid was "after a number of rulings against the church by a county judge presiding over the case in Portland." This part was really disturbing, "Sandra Scott called her former bishop to warn him that her son had been sexually abused; however, the bishop told her that he already knew that the perpetrator had a history of abuse (going back to the late 1970s) but that he was repentant. “The allegations against the LDS Church in the Scott lawsuit were similar to claims made in past lawsuits, which have alleged church leaders have failed to warn victims’ families or alert authorities to child abuse reports” (The Salt Lake Tribune, “LDS Church Settles Suit, Paying $3M,” 9/5/2001, A1)
Then there is the recent case of Michael Jensen where a group of 6 families with 9 children all filed a lawsuit against the LDS Church. The families alleged LDS leaders knew one of their members was abusing children and actively covered up the abuse that continued for years. The abuser was the son of the Relief Society president and naturally the Bishop chose to ignore the victims. Then when he was finally convicted at least one family was sent messages on social media telling them they need to forgive. This case was settled not long ago the
news article about the settlement is here, but the amounts paid are not reported it seems the Church doesn't want that released.
There are obviously differences but there is a thread of Church leaders protecting sexual abusers to harm new victims. McKenna has a case, whether she gets a fair hearing from a jury of her peers is another matter.
*Update: I didn't have a chance to look at the Michael Jensen case before posting in much detail I had just seen the reporting. Having looked at some of the paperwork it is shocking. It turns out his Relief Society President mother was recommending members use him as a babysitter when she knew he was a sexual predator, that she was threatening victims to keep quiet, that they held a disciplinary council that a witness admitted to and that resulted in him getting let off lightly. Later the Church denied knowledge of this disciplinary council and the witness suddenly didn't remember the disciplinary council anymore with the Church claiming they only found out about the abuse 6 years later when he was convicted. They also placed him as an unsupervised Primary Class teacher for 4 year olds.
It also turns out that he was the grandson of the Stake Patriarch for the Provo Stake, that his grandfather had "both professional and personal relationships with two former Church Presidents and the current President of the Church" and that the abuser had "told his friend, J.C., he had been in legal trouble in Utah and that his grandfather “was in a leadership position for the church . . . [and] helped take care of whatever needed to be taken care of.” It was also suggested that this Stake Patriarch influenced his earlier sentencing for this crime and the record shows "atypical factors in the proceeding".
It is similar in the sense that the case went after the LDS Church for their conspiracy in covering up a sexual abuser. To get an idea of the case here's
the appeal against the summary judgement that the Church initially won but that was reversed last year leading to the recent settlement.[/quote]
thanx for your input especially on the jensen case- i read the book on curtis but did not know about the RM. the church lawyers have not gone to trial in most if not all of these types of cases and they try every trick to delay and cloud the situation hoping the lawsuit will go away or they can get a small settlement and a tight NDA- on this one they probably were being puished for a lot of $$$ and decided to try the go to trial venue until the evidence was clear they could not win and could face huge damages- the supreme court of appeals slammed the circuit judge pretty hard- i wonder if church got to him to make those careless summary judgments in favor of the church?
i think the church will settle and pay a pretty penny- the victim/survivor seems to have lots of personal issues and instead of going to trial, which i wish she would, needs the $$$ to help get her life back. however in the NDA in catholic los angeles diocese cardinal mahony not only paid big bucks but the NDA required him to name all priests who had been credibly accused of sexual predation or abuse in the past 25 years. mahony would never go to trial so he had to agree to turn over "secret" personnel records of those priests. maybe the victim/survivor here can not only get $$ but demand a similar release of information by the lds church which is probably burning records as we speak - in los angeles the judge forbid such conduct telling the cardinal if such was found out the cardinal would be jailed.
thanx again
k