|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
More than five years after a group of eight ex-paperboys sued the Democrat & Chronicle and Gannett Co. Inc., its parent company, over alleged 1980s sexual abuse by a route supervisor, the case is moving forward following a two-year detour to the New York Workers’ Compensation Board.
The former news carriers alleged the abuse in Child Victims Act complaints filed shortly after the New York law took effect in August 2019. After three years of pretrial maneuvering, Gannett pushed to have the case moved from a state court set up to hear CVA cases to the workers’ comp system until an appeals court sent it back to the courtroom of state Supreme Court Justice Deborah Chimes in Buffalo.
In her first ruling since resuming oversight of the cases, Chimes found in a Nov. 1 decision that the cases can move forward.
The cases had gone to the workers’ comp board in 2022 after Chimes acceded to Gannett’s contention that the ex-carriers were D&C employees and that, under state law, the workers’ comp system was the only venue under which their complaints could be heard. Gannett further contended that since the carriers had not filed workers’ comp complaints when the abuse occurred, the complaints would be time barred.
During the two-year hiatus, the ex-carriers and their lawyers testified before workers’ comp board administrative law judges, but the board issued no rulings or findings.
“This court finds (the) claims were not time barred when the initial (CVA) complaint was filed,” Chimes found in the Nov. 1 ruling.
In sending the case back to Chimes, a Fourth Department appellate panel ruled that only Chimes and not the workers’ comp board can decide whether the cases should be tried under the CVA or the workers’ comp system.
A state court ruling against Gannett could result in significantly higher damages for the newspaper chain than a negative workers’ comp ruling.
While not a slam dunk for the ex-carriers, the judge’s Nov. 1 finding could bode well for their case since Gannett’s contention that the ex-carriers’ complaints were time barred rested on the supposition that the workers’ comp system and not the CVA should be their sole remedy. But the latest ruling still leaves significant issues to be decided.
Perhaps most significantly, Chimes has yet to decide whether she or the workers’ comp board should ultimately decide the dispute. Still, in another finding that could be seen as a point in the former paperboys’ favor, she found that new charges sought to be added to the three separate CVA complaints filed by ex-carriers alleging they were subjected to a hostile work environment can be added.
In Gannett’s possible favor, meanwhile, Chimes found that the D&C had taken out workers’ comp insurance on the paperboys at the time the alleged abuse occurred.
Rick Bates, now a Washington D.C.-based consultant in his 50s, was the first former D&C carrier to file a CVA complaint against the paper. He and seven others claim their then-route supervisor, Jack Lazeroff, who is now deceased, routinely sexually violated them over a period of several years.
Bates and other D&C ex-carriers maintain in court papers that Gannett should have known that Lazeroff, who had been fired from a previous banking job for molesting teenage college loan applicants, was a sexual predator. The ex-carriers also entered into evidence Brighton police reports alleging that Lazeroff had been witnessed publicly making sexual advances to underage boys in a doughnut shop while working as a D&C route supervisor.
Hoping to see the D&C run stories outlining Lazeroff’s alleged molestation of him and others, Bates first made his complaints over Lazeroff’s alleged predation known to D&C reporters in 2018.
In an anguished letter to then D&C investigative reporter David Andreatta, Bates wrote that as a result of the abuse he allegedly suffered at Lazeroff’s hands, “I contemplate suicide, even though I have a beautiful family and two young kids of my own. I have let my work go to hell and am staring at ruin coming from so many angles now. I am unraveling.”
A month later, a D&C official responded, stating that no one at the paper “recalls any complaints or allegations of the kind that you describe, either against Mr. Lazeroff, or any other person.”
The official, then the local markets chief operating officer, added: “Accordingly, while we remain deeply sympathetic, there’s nothing more that we can do, and are therefore closing-out this matter.”
More than a year later, after Bates had filed the CVA complaint, Andreatta, who by then had left the D&C, explained in a February 2019 email that he forwarded Bates’ request to company officials “far above my pay grade” and had been “left with the impression that responding to your correspondence would be handled by people outside my newsroom.”
Added Andreatta: “Nevertheless, your email has haunted me, and I felt I needed to do the right thing by writing you now. Your story touched me, and I need to apologize to you for not letting you know that upon receiving your email.”
Had the D&C apologized and offered him a token sum of several thousand dollars in 2018, he would have let the matter rest, Bates told me last week.
Now, says Bates, “it’s a challenge for me that I’m not going to let go. I will pursue this into my 80s if I have to.”
Chimes has ordered plaintiffs in the three separate CVA cases to jointly submit an order reflecting her findings by Dec. 1. The docket shows no further proceedings scheduled at this time.
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].
Our Nonprofit Newsroom Needs Your Support
The Rochester Beacon’s journalists are dedicated to bringing you high-quality local news and analysis. As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit news outlet, we rely on donations from the community to stay paywall-free. Make a tax-deductible contribution today to support our hardworking journalists—and NewsMatch will double your donation.