An appeals court has reversed a lower-court ruling that sent former Democrat and Chronicle newspaper carriers’ Child Victims Act complaints to the Workers Compensation Board. The court ruled that the former carriers are entitled to their long-sought day in court to address allegations of sexual abuse by a supervisor.
Eight ex-carriers first filed CVA claims against the D&C and Gannett Corp. in 2019, shortly after the law took effect. The CVA opened a two-year window for victims of long-past sexual abuse to pursue alleged child molesters who otherwise would have been shielded by a statute of limitations.
The former carriers all claim to have been abused by Jack Lazeroff, a now-deceased former D&C route supervisor who oversaw carriers in the 1980s.
Gannett’s lawyers had contended that as the D&C’s employees, the carriers could only have their claims heard by the Workers’ Compensation Board and that since the carriers had failed to file workers’ comp claims in the 1980s, the board would have to deny any newly filed claims as time barred.
After more than three years of pretrial skirmishing in a state court specially set up to handle CVA claims, Supreme Court Justice Deborah Chimes granted Gannett’s bid to send the cases to state’s Workers Compensation Board.
The carriers appealed Chimes’ ruling in February 2023. In a July 30 order, the Fourth Department Appellate Division ruled on the appeal, reversing Chimes’ decision.
Chimes’ erred in sending the Gannett CVA cases to the Workers’ Compensation Board, an appellate division four-judge panel ruled. Only a court and not an administrative body like the board could decide questions of law raised by the CVA cases.
No date has yet been set for Chimes’ court to resume the CVA cases.
Among questions the appeals court said the judge must consider are whether the CVA claimants’ damages can be limited to workers’ comp benefits, which pay for medical costs tracing to workplace injuries and replacement wages for time lost at work.
In a 2020 court complaint, two ex-carriers, Ballard Tackett and Kelby Ash, accused Lazeroff of abusing them on multiple occasions.
Before being hired by the D&C, Lazeroff had previously been fired from a job at a Rochester bank for allegedly sexually assaulting teens he was supposed to be helping with college loan applications, the carriers’ court papers claim.
Lazeroff was ultimately fired by the D&C. An account of his dismissal by a former D&C employee cited in the Kelby and Ash complaint alleges that while Lazeroff was apparently fired over allegations that he sexually abused carriers, he believed that the newspaper cited financial improprieties as cause for Lazeroff’s dismissal.
Among the first ex-carriers to sue Gannett in a CVA action was Rick Bates. In an amended complaint filed in 2022, Bates questioned whether he and other carriers were D&C employees and whether the D&C had secured workers’ comp coverage of carriers.
Now a husband and father living in Washington, D.C., where he works as a consultant, Bates had a newspaper delivery route in Brighton as an 11- and 12-year-old. He says he did not inform Gannett of Lazeroff’s abuse at the time and first contacted Gannett about it in 2018, months before the CVA took effect.
Though he understood that he was then prevented from suing, Bates says he was hoping to interest the newspaper, which at the time was running stories recounting alleged sexual abuse of minors by Roman Catholic Diocese of Rochester priests, in reporting on Lazeroff’s alleged abuse of himself and other carriers.
Bates’ initial email to a reporter who had written about allegations of priests’ abuse was diverted to a company official, who told Bates that records that might back his claim were no longer available and that Bates therefore had no basis to claim liability. The newspaper ran no story at that time.
In early 2019, the reporter Bates had first contacted, David Andreatta, apologized to Bates in an email stating the matter had been taken out of his hands and that ”I’ve been wracked with guilt for not responding.”
Some eight months later, in October 2019, after Bates and others filed CVA complaints against Gannett and the D&C, the newspaper did report on the abuse allegations.
Will Astor is Rochester Beacon senior writer. The Beacon welcomes comments and letters from readers who adhere to our comment policy including use of their full, real name. Submissions to the Letters page should be sent to [email protected].