WISCONSIN
Green Bay Press-Gazette
Paul Srubas, Press-Gazette Media May 29, 2015
A Nevada man who claimed he was molested by a former Freedom priest is not entitled to compensation from the Catholic Diocese of Green Bay, the Nevada Supreme Court ruled Thursday.
The case involved a lawsuit filed by “John Doe 119,” who claimed the former Rev. John P. Feeney molested him in 1984 in Las Vegas. The lawsuit states the man was 13 when he was assaulted by Feeney, but it was not until around 2008 that Doe recognized that he had psychological trauma as a result of Feeney’s acts. Doe sued the diocese for negligence in hiring and retaining Feeney.
In the lawsuit, Doe claimed Feeney, a pastor in Las Vegas at the time of the assault, was still an agent of the diocese, that the diocese was aware Feeney had molested children in Wisconsin and that it negligently failed to warn others that he was a danger.
Doe won his case in a lower court in Clark County, Nev., where a jury in 2012 awarded him $500,000 in compensation from the diocese, according to a report by the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
The state Supreme Court decision reverses that.
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