# Christic Institute The Christic Institute was a Jesuit-influenced interfaith public-interest law firm, founded in 1980 in Washington, D.C. by [[Danny Sheehan]], Sara Nelson, and Fr. William J. Davis after the Silkwood case. It blended progressive Christian social justice with impact litigation, and its collapse made it the cautionary tale of [[The Octopus]] tradition. ## Cases Christic worked on Three Mile Island victims' claims, the Greensboro Massacre civil suit, and the Sanctuary Movement defense. Its defining action was *Avirgan v. Hull* (1986), a roughly $24 million civil RICO suit alleging a 30-defendant "Secret Team" -- including [[John Singlaub]], Richard Secord, Theodore Shackley, and others -- behind the 1984 La Penca bombing and the broader [[Iran-Contra Affair]]. ## Collapse A federal judge dismissed the suit on summary judgment in June 1988 as "unsubstantiated rumor and speculation," and in 1989 imposed roughly $1 million in Rule 11 sanctions -- fees and costs that bankrupted the firm. The dismissal was affirmed on appeal and the Supreme Court declined review; the IRS revoked Christic's tax-exempt status in 1992, after which [[Danny Sheehan]] formed the [[Romero Institute]]. ## Epistemic status Christic's cases and the legal outcome are documented. Its "Secret Team" theory -- a continuous off-the-books CIA/crime/arms/drug network across decades -- is a foundational text of the Octopus frame and, simultaneously, the instance where that frame was sanctioned in court as legally frivolous. ## See also - [[The Octopus]] - [[Danny Sheehan]] - [[Romero Institute]] - [[Iran-Contra Affair]]