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	Accused Priest Shielded No More Alleged Victim Can Seek Damages By Julian Emerson Leader-Telegram January 11, 2008 http://www.leadertelegram.com/story-news_local.asp?id=BFFA47A69IP Catholic church leaders in Minnesota and Wisconsin have sought for years to protect one of the nation's most notorious pedophile priests from public scrutiny, but on Thursday a decision by a Minnesota judge returned the spotlight to Altoona resident Thomas Adamson. Ramsey County Judge Kathleen Gearin ruled that a Minnesota man who filed a lawsuit against Adamson in 2006 claiming the priest sexually abused him 25 years ago can seek punitive damages against the Archdiocese of St. Paul and the Winona, Minn., diocese. As in most cases involving allegations of sexual abuse, the plaintiff's name is not made public. The case marks just the second time one of Adamson's victims has been allowed to sue for punitive damages, said St. Paul lawyer Jeffrey Anderson, who is representing the plaintiff and has prosecuted numerous abuse cases against Adamson since 1984. The other case in which seeking punitive damages was allowed occurred in 1989. "This is an extraordinary breakthrough," Anderson said of the judge's decision. Allowing plaintiffs to seek punitive damages in cases involving priests "just hasn't happened very often." Church leaders were unavailable for comment. Most cases seeking damages against priests are thrown out because of statute of limitations regulations, which dictate that lawsuits be filed within a certain number of years of an alleged assault occurring. Those rules normally would apply to the case Gearin ruled on because the plaintiff said Adamson assaulted him at a church parish in 1983. However, a judge previously ruled that the case could proceed because the plaintiff had repressed memories of his assault. In 1984 Anderson filed a landmark lawsuit against Adamson, the first time in the U.S. a diocese was sued for allowing abuse by a priest. More than 30 people have filed claims stating that Adamson had sexually abused them; advocates and lawyers involved with the cases estimate he has abused as many as 100. According to accounts detailed in court records, Adamson had sexual relations with boys and men at various Minnesota locations from 1959 until at least the early 1980s. Lawsuits claim diocese leaders in Winona and St. Paul failed to report Adamson's abuses, instead transferring him to new locations, where he abused others. Minnesota Catholic dioceses have paid an estimated $6 million to settle claims resulting from Adamson's actions. Last January a Leader-Telegram story detailed the efforts of leaders of the Winona, St. Paul and La Crosse dioceses to secretly transfer Adamson to the Eau Claire-Altoona area sometime during the early to mid-1990s. He subsequently worked at Oakwood Villa nursing home in Altoona before he was fired from that job after officials with the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests informed the nursing home about Adamson's past. Peter Isely, director of the Wisconsin SNAP organization, said Thursday's court ruling sends a powerful message that church cover-ups of abuse by priests are blatantly wrong. "Punitive damages go to the heart of this issue. It's the only way that juries and judges can respond to what the diocese leaders have done," Isely said. Emerson can be reached at julian.emerson@ecpc.com or 830-5911, 800-236-7077.
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