MINNESOTA
Duluth News Tribune
By Elizabeth Mohr, St. Paul Pioneer Press
ST. PAUL — There’s no dispute that the Rev. James Vincent Fitzgerald sexually abused a Minnesota teen in 1978, according to opposing attorneys in a lawsuit filed by the victim.
The question for a jury: Who supervised the priest when the abuse took place?
The victim’s attorney, Jeff Anderson, said during his opening statement Wednesday that the Diocese of Duluth was charged with overseeing the priest while he worked in one of its parishes, where the abuse took place.
The diocese’s attorney, Susan Gaertner — former Ramsey County attorney-turned-defense attorney — said that because Fitzgerald was an oblate priest, a member of a religious order, the leader of his order was in charge of his oversight, not the diocese where the order placed him.
“Doe 30” filed his lawsuit in early 2014 in Ramsey County District Court against the Diocese of Duluth, the Oblates of Mary Immaculate and the Diocese of New Ulm. The Duluth diocese is the sole remaining defendant; the oblates order settled with Doe 30 and the court dismissed the New Ulm diocese earlier this year.
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