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	High Court Won't Hear Adamson Abuse Case By Donna Halvorsen Star Tribune May 23, 1992 The Minnesota Supreme Court has refused to consider reinstating more than $ 2.5 million in punitive damages against the Catholic Church for the sexual abuse of a Columbia Heights altar boy by the Rev. Thomas Adamson. But the court's decision not to hear the case will let stand $ 992,000 in damages previously awarded to the victim, now 27, from the Catholic Diocese of Winona and the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. "I think it gives us some light at the end of the tunnel as far as the Adamson cases and lets us get on to more important things, especially the kinds of things the church is doing now to respond to clergy misconduct," church attorney Andrew Eisenzimmer said Friday. But St. Paul attorney Jeffrey Anderson, who represented the victim, said he was "extremely disappointed. We were hoping the Supreme Court would hear it, given the magnitude of the issue and the magnitude of the trial court's reduction in punitive damages of more than $ 2.5 million." In December 1990, an Anoka County District Court jury awarded the victim a total of $ 3.55 million, including $ 2.7 million in punitive damages and $ 855,000 in past and future compensatory damages. But Judge Phyllis Jones stripped away all but $ 137,000 of the punitive damages, saying the punishment was excessive. She said the church already had been punished by negative publicity and out-of-court settlements in five other cases involving Adamson. The jury's verdict was the nation's first in which a church was ordered to pay punitive damages for sexual abuse by a priest. Jones rejected the argument that the punitive damages interfered with the church's right to free exercise of religion. The Minnesota Court of Appeals rejected that argument as well, ruling that a church can be assessed punitive damages for sexual abuse by a priest. But the court upheld Jones' reduction in the punitive damages. The victim in the case alleged that Adamson had abused him over a period of eight years, starting when he was a 13-year-old altar boy in a Columbia Heights parish in 1989. Adamson had been transferred to the Twin Cities from Winona after another boy alleged that he had been abused by Adamson. Anderson contended - and the jury agreed - that the church showed willful indifference by failing to remove Adamson from the priesthood when it knew he had a 20-year history of abusing boys. In a statement released Friday, the archdiocese said that sexual abuse trials and appeals are "harmful to all involved" but that Anderson had rebuffed the church's offers of settlements in the case. It speculated that he may have been motivated by a desire for "prolonged public criticism of the archdiocese" or personal publicity. Anderson said the offers "weren't serious, didn't reflect the value of the case and didn't come close to what they're ultimately going to pay." The archdiocese also said it is unjustly being judged by "distorted allegations relating to events which occurred over a decade ago." "The jury judged them by contemporary standards, and they should be judged by contemporary standards," Anderson said. "They [priests who abuse] shouldn't be placed in a special position where they're able to continue the sexual abuse of our children." Another sexual abuse case involving Adamson is scheduled for trial next fall in Ramsey County. Anderson has argued a motion for punitive damages in that case and is awaiting a ruling by Judge Donald Gross.
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