the jury in Schenectady Supreme Court found that the pension funds were mismanaged and awarded them over $54 million.<\/p>\n
SCHENECTADY, N.Y. \u2013 The former St. Clare\u2019s employees fighting for their pensions won a victory in court on Friday.<\/p>\n
After a weeks-long trial, the jury in Schenectady Supreme Court found that the pension funds were mismanaged and awarded them over $54 million. The New York State Attorney General\u2019s Office and the AARP Foundation brought the suit.<\/p>\n
The jury found former bishops and the former management of St. Clare\u2019s Hospital liable for failing to properly administer the St. Clare\u2019s Hospital pension plan for 1,124 workers, according to the Attorney General\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n
Former Albany bishops Howard Hubbard and Edward Scharfenberger,\u00a0former diocesan employee and St. Clare\u2019s President Joseph Pofit, and former St. Clare\u2019s Hospital President Robert Perry, all breached their fiduciary duties to the St. Clare\u2019s Hospital and the pensioners, according to Attorney General Letitia James.<\/p>\n
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany said the diocese itself was not found liable.<\/p>\n
The jury awarded $54.2 million in damages to the pensioners for their lost pension payments.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis verdict is a major victory for every St. Clare\u2019s Hospital employee who tirelessly cared for patients and was unjustly denied their pension and the chance to retire with dignity,\u201d James said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Assemblyman Angelo Santabarbara issued a statement reacting to the verdict.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe verdict in the St. Clare\u2019s pension case is a long-overdue affirmation of fairness for retirees who did everything right. These workers dedicated decades of service caring for our community and earned the retirement security they were promised.\u00a0Today\u2019s decision confirms that those promises matter,\u201d he said in a statement.<\/p>\n
During closing arguments on Thursday, the defense attorneys attempted to lay the blame at the state Department of Health and the Berger Commission, which was forcing hospitals to find efficiencies. St. Clare\u2019s ultimately closed in 2008.<\/p>\n
Attorneys for the plaintiffs argued the St. Clare\u2019s board should have been putting money into the fund and should have been more transparent with pensioners about the dire state\u00a0of the fund.<\/p>\n
NewsChannel 13 will have updates on air and online. <\/p>\n
RELATED: Closing arguments take place in case of former St. Clare\u2019s employees seeking to get their pensions<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n RELATED: St. Clare\u2019s pensioners hopeful as trial wraps up this week<\/a><\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tFor Related Stories:\u00a0St. Clare’s Pension Fund<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0St. Clare’s Hospital<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0Schenectady<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0Link In Bio<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"the jury in Schenectady Supreme Court found that the pension funds were mismanaged and awarded them over $54…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":181767,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[138,246,115451,111,139,69,244,245,115450,114709,115449],"class_list":{"0":"post-181766","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-finance","10":"tag-link-in-bio","11":"tag-new-zealand","12":"tag-newzealand","13":"tag-nz","14":"tag-personal-finance","15":"tag-personalfinance","16":"tag-schenectady","17":"tag-st-clares-hospital","18":"tag-st-clares-pension-fund"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181766","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181766"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181766\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/181767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}