Miscellaneous
-3
COURT DUBIOUS ON PRIEST SEX SUIT - PROBABLY WON'T ALLOW WOMAN TO SUE
DIOCESE
OF MADISON
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SECTION:
Local/Wisconsin
The Wisconsin Supreme Court seems unlikely to let a Madison
woman who had
sex with a priest sue the Roman Catholic Diocese of
Madison.
Comments by the justices during argument Tuesday indicated they
have
factual and First Amendment problems with letting Laura Nyberg pursue
her
lawsuit against the church.
Nyberg had a sexual relationship with the
Rev. J. Gibbs Clauder from 1990
to 1991 after meeting him when he counseled
her at Meriter Hospital in
1988.
Clauder, who was the hospital chaplain,
said in pretrial testimony that,
unlike his usual practice, he called on
Nyberg after she left the hospital
to make sure she had support and then
continued to counsel her on a variety
of personal problems.
The two met
for meals and other social activities and had sex in Clauder's
room in the
rectory of St. Bernard Catholic Church in Madison.
When the two met, Nyberg
was a youth minister and religious education
associate at St. Bernard's. She
taught morality and religion to students in
grades six through
twelve.
Nyberg sued Clauder, who is on leave at Holy Rosary Congregation
in
Darlington, and the church after ending the relationship.
She claimed
that Clauder violated state law in exploiting his role as a
therapist to
foster a sexual relationship and that diocese officials were
negligent in
supervising him.
Nyberg claimed the diocese had been derelict in not
investigating Clauder
after the Rev. John Hebl, then pastor at St. Bernard's,
found him bleeding
from a bitten wrist and struggling with a woman he had
pinned to the floor
of his room.
The incident, in which Clauder violated
Hebl's rule forbidding priests from
having women in their room, happened
shortly before Clauder started having
sex with Nyberg.
Hebl admitted in
pretrial testimony that he knew Clauder had a longtime
friendship with the
first woman and had traveled with her. He also said he
thought the two might
have had sex and he was disappointed with the
priest's conduct.
But Hebl
also said he would never accuse Clauder of sexual misconduct and
didn't
report the incident to the bishop.
Nyberg's lawyer, David McFarlane, told the
court Hebl was accountable to
the bishop and the diocese should be held
responsible for his knowledge.
Justice Donald Steinmetz, though, told
McFarlane he didn't think the
diocese should be liable for the knowledge of
its priests.
McFarlane said such a result would be bad public policy.
``To
support that result,'' McFarlane said, `` would encourage church
officials to
close their ears, eyes and mouths and when they see something
suspicious to
do nothing.''
But Justices Janine Geske and William Bablitch asked why
Clauder' s conduct
with a woman who wasn't a patient was relevant to his work
as a hospital
chaplain.
``Because it showed that he had no respect for his
vows of celibacy, ''
McFarlane said, adding the unusual nature of Hebl's
observation should have
prompted an investigation.
``Something fairly
extreme had gone on and . . . Pastor Hebl saw it and did
nothing,'' he
said.
But Geske, Bablitch and Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson questioned
whether
a lay therapist or therapist from a religion that didn't require
celibacy
would be suspect as a chaplain for the same conduct.
``There's a
plethora of evidence that this was an ongoing consensual
relationship,''
Bablitch said of Clauder's relationship with the first
woman.
And,
Bablitch said, in order for the justices to decide if church officials
should
have investigated Clauder, they would have to consider church
doctrine on
celibacy.
``We're not equipped to do that and there's case after case that
says we
shouldn't,'' Bablitch said, referring to decisions that say courts
are
barred by the U.S. Constitution from deciding cases that require
the
interpretation of religious issues.
The high court reached such a
result in a similar 1995 case when it said
the First Amendment barred nearly
all lawsuits against the church for
negligently supervising priests.
Dane
County Circuit Judge George Northrup relied on the 1995 case in
throwing out
Nyberg's lawsuit against the church, but letting her sue
Clauder.
The 4th
District Court of Appeals, though, disagreed last July and said a
judge or
jury could decide if the church was negligent without considering
religious
doctrine. McFarlane told the high court that appellate courts in
10 other
states have reached a similar result.
The Supreme Court is expected to issue
a decision by the end of June.
SEX RELIGION LAWSUIT WISCONSIN
COURT
Copyright © 1997 Madison Newspapers, Inc.
Cary Segall
Wisconsin State Journal, COURT DUBIOUS ON PRIEST SEX SUIT -
PROBABLY WON'T
ALLOW WOMAN TO SUE DIOCESE OF MADISON. , Wisconsin State
Journal, 03-05-1997,
pp 1D.
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Copyright
© 1999 Infonautics Corporation
