What Is the Average Settlement for Clergy Abuse?

The most widely cited average settlement for clergy abuse in the United States is about $268,000 per claimant, a figure calculated by the nonprofit BishopAccountability.org from documented cases involving 5,769 survivors.¹ That number is a useful anchor, but it hides an enormous range. Individual payouts in the 2003 Boston Archdiocese settlement ran from $80,000 to $300,000. Victims in the 2007 Los Angeles Archdiocese settlement received roughly $1.3 million each before legal fees. A single plaintiff in a 2026 Oakland case was awarded $16 million by a jury.² What any particular survivor receives depends on the facts of the case, the diocese involved, and how the claim is resolved.

What the $268,000 Average Actually Measures

The BishopAccountability.org average is drawn from publicly documented settlements covering roughly a third of the 15,235 abuse allegations reported to U.S. bishops through 2009.¹ Smaller, quietly resolved cases are underrepresented, and the figure reflects gross settlement amounts, not what survivors take home after attorneys’ fees and any applicable taxes.

The average also predates the current wave of litigation. A January 2025 report by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University found that U.S. Catholic dioceses, eparchies, and men’s religious communities spent a combined $5.025 billion on sexual abuse allegations between 2004 and 2023, with about 75% of that going directly to victims.³ Add the Archdiocese of Los Angeles’s $880 million agreement and the Rockville Centre diocese’s $323 million settlement, both resolved in 2024, and the running total approaches $5.6 billion.⁴ The upward pressure on average payouts has been significant.

How Much Individual Survivors Have Received

Settlements vary across a wide spread. A few resolved cases illustrate the range:

Boston Archdiocese (2003): 552 claimants shared up to $85 million, with individual awards between $80,000 and $300,000 determined by arbitrators based on severity.⁵
Los Angeles Archdiocese (2007): 508 victims split $660 million, averaging roughly $1.3 million per person.¹
Diocese of Pittsburgh (2021): 224 claimants received a total of $19.2 million through a compensation program, averaging roughly $86,000 per person.¹
Newark Archdiocese (2019): Five plaintiffs split $400,000, averaging $80,000 each.
Diocese of Oakland (2026): A jury awarded $16 million to a single plaintiff who alleged abuse by a former priest more than 50 years earlier.²

Cases that proceed through litigation generally settle somewhere between $500,000 and $10 million per survivor, though plenty of outcomes land on either side of that band.

What Pushes a Settlement Higher or Lower

No two cases settle for the same amount. The factors that carry the most weight are the severity and duration of the abuse, the survivor’s age at the time, the lasting psychological and physical consequences, the strength of the evidence, and whether the institution knew about the abuse and failed to act.

Cases involving prolonged abuse by multiple perpetrators, or where a diocese actively concealed a known abuser, tend to produce the highest payouts. Institutional negligence, such as a church reassigning a priest it knew was dangerous, broadens liability beyond the individual perpetrator and can push settlements into six or seven figures. Cases with thin evidence or questionable statute-of-limitations footing tend to settle for less, if they succeed at all.

Corroborating evidence shapes the number. Medical records, therapy notes, police reports, and internal church documents all strengthen a survivor’s position. Patterns of behavior documented across multiple claims against the same abuser help overcome the evidentiary difficulties that come with decades-old allegations.

How Bankruptcy Changes the Per-Survivor Number

At least 18 U.S. dioceses and archdioceses are currently in Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings, with others having already emerged.⁶ When a diocese files, all pending litigation pauses, claims are pooled, and the court sets a deadline for survivors to come forward. The diocese then proposes a reorganization plan funded by diocesan assets, parish contributions, property sales, and insurance recoveries.

Bankruptcy consolidates claims and forces financial transparency, but it also tends to cap what any one survivor can recover. The pool is fixed and everyone draws from it. Survivors’ advocates have criticized the process, arguing dioceses use it strategically to limit payouts.⁷

Per-survivor payouts in these settlements vary. In the Diocese of Norwich, Connecticut, a $31 million settlement worked out to roughly $310,000 per survivor. In Rockville Centre, dividing $323 million among approximately 600 claimants yields about $538,000 per person before fees, though individual awards differ based on the severity of each claim.⁸ In Buffalo, $150 million split among 900 claims works out to roughly $167,000 on average. Those are gross numbers; fees, costs, and taxes reduce them further.

Diocesan Compensation Programs Pay Less Than Lawsuits

Many dioceses have established Independent Reconciliation and Compensation Programs, or IRCPs, that offer survivors a way to seek compensation without filing a lawsuit. These programs are typically run by independent administrators. The Archdiocese of New York’s program, for instance, was run by Kenneth Feinberg, known for administering the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund.⁹

IRCP payouts tend to come in below litigation outcomes. The Archdiocese of New York’s program paid $40 million to 189 claimants as of late 2017, averaging about $212,000 per person. The Diocese of Pittsburgh’s program paid over $19 million to 224 claimants, averaging around $86,000. The Diocese of Scranton paid $24.5 million to 213 claimants, roughly $115,000 each.¹⁰ Accepting an IRCP offer generally requires signing a legal release that bars future lawsuits over the same claim, which is why attorneys recommend consulting counsel before participating.

What Survivors Keep After Fees and Taxes

A settlement’s headline number is not what a survivor receives. Attorney contingency fees in sexual abuse cases commonly run 33% to 40% of the recovery, plus costs for expert witnesses, filing fees, and other litigation expenses. A $300,000 gross settlement, for example, could yield $180,000 to $200,000 before taxes.

The tax treatment of clergy abuse settlements sits in a gray area. Under federal tax law, damages received on account of personal physical injuries or physical sickness are excluded from gross income, while damages for purely emotional distress are generally taxable. Sexual abuse cases do not always involve visible injuries like broken bones, which complicates the analysis. The IRS has issued non-precedential internal guidance allowing clergy abuse settlements to be treated as tax-free on the reasoning that the abuse was physical enough to trigger the resulting emotional injuries.¹¹¹² Tax professionals generally recommend that settlement agreements explicitly characterize payments as being for “personal physical injuries, physical sickness, and emotional distress therefrom” to strengthen the case for exclusion. Proposed federal legislation, the Survivor Justice Tax Prevention Act, would amend the tax code to make settlements for sexual acts or contact explicitly tax-free, but it has not been enacted.¹³

How Long Cases Take to Resolve

Most civil sexual abuse cases settle within 12 to 24 months, though complex institutional cases can stretch for years. Cases against large institutions like Catholic dioceses tend to take longer because they involve extensive document discovery, depositions of church officials, and sometimes the coordination of hundreds of claims. When a diocese files for bankruptcy, resolution can drag on far longer. Buffalo’s bankruptcy has been pending for over six years, and some survivors in that case have died waiting for compensation.⁷

Trials are rare. Historically, only about 41 clergy abuse cases have gone to trial out of more than 3,000 filed since 1950. The vast majority resolve through settlement or bankruptcy proceedings. Mediation can happen at any point, sometimes on the eve of trial, which is when defendants often offer their most substantial terms.

Comparisons Beyond the Catholic Church

Averages work differently in other institutional settings. The Boy Scouts of America filed for bankruptcy in 2020 and ultimately established a $2.46 billion settlement fund to address more than 82,000 claims. Payouts are tiered from $3,500 to $2.7 million depending on the nature and severity of the abuse.¹⁴ As of early 2026, the BSA’s settlement trust had distributed over $295 million to nearly 37,000 survivors, with claimants receiving roughly 4.7% of their allowed claim amount so far while an additional $1.65 billion remains in escrow.¹⁵ The Southern Baptist Convention, by contrast, is a cooperative of 47,000 independent churches with no central mechanism to mandate settlements, and no comparable fund has been established.¹⁶ Where a case lands depends heavily on which institution is responsible and what legal structure applies.

1
ConsumerShield. Clergy Sexual Abuse Payouts
2
NBC Bay Area. Clergy Abuse Case Oakland Diocese
3
National Catholic Reporter. More Than $5 Billion Spent on Catholic Sexual Abuse Allegations, New Report Finds
4
OSV News. 20 Years of Abuse Settlements for U.S. Catholic Dioceses Exceeds $5 Billion Total
5
Boston Globe. Archdiocese, Victims Reach Settlement
6
Catholic Project. Bankruptcy Information
7
SNAP Network. Bankruptcy Tracker
8
National Catholic Reporter. Long Island Parishes Forced to Pay Millions to Settle Sex Abuse Claims
9
Archdiocese of New York. Independent Reconciliation and Compensation Program
10
Catholic Project. Independent Reconciliation and Compensation Programs
11
IRS. Tax Implications of Settlements and Judgments
12
Forbes. IRS Tax on Sexual Abuse Settlements Needs Clarification
13
Wood LLP. Tax Bill Would Exempt Sexual Abuse Settlements
14
American Bankruptcy Institute. Boy Scouts Settlement
15
Scouting Settlement Trust. Scouting Settlement Trust
16
NPR. How the Southern Baptist Convention Covered Up Its Widespread Sexual Abuse Scandal