MINNESOTA
Duluth News Tribune
By Tom Olsen
A St. Paul jury has ordered the Diocese of Duluth and the Oblates of Mary Immaculate to pay more than $8 million in damages to a man who said he was sexually abused by a priest in the 1970s.
The verdict was handed down Wednesday in Ramsey County District Court in a trial that lasted more than two weeks. It was believed to be the first case filed under the Minnesota Child Victims Act to go to trial.
The plaintiff, known in court documents as Doe 30, filed the suit in February 2014, claiming he was sexually abused by Father J. Vincent Fitzgerald in the 1970s.
Jurors found that the diocese was 60 percent at fault and the Oblates —the religious order to which Fitzgerald belonged — 40 percent at fault.
Fitzgerald at the time was assigned to St. Catherine’s Church in Squaw Lake, Minn., within the Duluth diocese. The suit states that he spent 12 weeks at a pastoral education program in Willmar, Minn., in 1976 and asked the alleged victim to return to Squaw Lake with him.
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