MINNESOTA
Pioneer Press
By Emily Gurnon
egurnon@pioneerpress.com
POSTED: 07/21/2014
A Ramsey County judge ruled Monday that at least part of a sweeping priest sexual abuse lawsuit should go forward.
“Doe 1 deserves his day in court on this important case,” Judge John Van de North told attorneys for the plaintiff, the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and the Diocese of Winona.
Doe 1 is the pseudonym for a Twin Cities man who alleges he was sexually abused by then-priest Thomas Adamson between 1976 and 1977 while Adamson worked at St. Thomas Aquinas in St. Paul Park.
Van de North ruled that the plaintiff’s claims of negligence by the diocese and archdiocese should be decided by the jury. Attorneys for the defendants had argued that the judge should dismiss those claims.
A larger question for the judge is whether the plaintiff can allege that church officials created a “public nuisance” by allowing offending priests to remain active and concealing information about their misconduct from the public.
Van de North said he would rule on that issue after the defendants present more electronically stored information the plaintiff has requested. That is expected to happen within two weeks.
“It’s very clear that the judge ‘gets it,’ and it’s very clear that the jury’s going to ‘get it,’ ” Anderson said of the judge’s decision Monday.
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