Confirmed and final
The Rockville Centre plan is confirmed: a settlement of $323 million covering roughly 600 claimants, funded by the diocese and its insurers. At the time it was confirmed, it was the largest diocesan bankruptcy settlement in US history; larger settlements have since been reached elsewhere, but Rockville Centre’s remains fully resolved and paid out.
Confirmed is a meaningful word here. It is a different position from Buffalo, where a proposed
settlement is still awaiting court approval, and different again from Brooklyn or the
Archdiocese of New York, which never filed at all.
What a confirmed plan means for a claim now
A confirmed plan generally fixes how claims within the bankruptcy are handled and paid. What
that means for someone coming forward now depends on the plan’s terms, on whether any claims
were preserved outside it, and on whether other entities (a parish, a school, an order) are
potential defendants in their own right.
That is genuinely fact-specific, and it is the reason to ask rather than assume the door has
closed.
Time limits in New York depend on how old you were, who was responsible and the particular facts. There is no single deadline that applies to everyone. Ask rather than assume. It is a free call.
I did not file a claim during the bankruptcy.
Whether anything remains open depends on the plan’s terms and on whether other entities (a parish, a school, a religious order) are separately answerable. It is worth asking rather than assuming a confirmed plan closed everything.
Does the $323 million figure mean each claimant received a set amount?
No. It is the total value of the settlement across roughly 600 claimants, and individual awards vary considerably according to the facts. No figure predicts any individual outcome.
Was the religious order that ran my school part of the bankruptcy?
Not necessarily. Religious orders are frequently separate legal entities from the diocese, and one may remain answerable when the other has reorganised.