MINNESOTA
St. Cloud Times
The Associated Press July 20, 2014
MINNEAPOLIS – Lawyers for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis return to court Monday to ask a judge to dismiss a clergy sex abuse lawsuit that’s already forced painful revelations about how top church officials handled allegations of misconduct by priests.
St. Paul attorney Jeff Anderson filed the lawsuit last year for a man identified as Doe 1 who alleges he was molested by the Rev. Thomas Adamson while Adamson was working at St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church in St. Paul Park around 1976.
But the case has taken on a much greater significance. Anderson offered a novel legal theory that the archdiocese created a “public nuisance,” and has used it to take court-ordered depositions from Archbishop John Nienstedt and other top church leaders — and to make them public.
Here are five things to know about the case and the issues to be discussed Monday:
1.THE LEGAL ISSUES
The archdiocese is asking Ramsey County District Judge John Van de North to dismiss the lawsuit. It says no evidence has emerged to back up Doe 1’s claim that church officials were negligent in assigning Adamson to St. Thomas Aquinas. The archdiocese also argues that the public nuisance claim doesn’t stand up. Van de North wrote in a December ruling that the claim is “a bit of a stretch” and a “particularly close call.” But he let the case go forward, giving Anderson his opening to depose Nienstedt.
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