Feb 19, 2007 7:31 pm US/Central
Masseuse Who Married Client Won't Lose License
St. Paul (AP) ―
The Minnesota Health Department has rescinded its discipline order against a Lindstrom massage therapist who broke the law by having sex with a former client -- a man she eventually married.
LaRae Lundeen Fjellman had been ordered to not to have sex with any former client and to pay a civil penalty, but it was rescinded Feb. 9, according to the American Civil Liberties Union in Minnesota.
State law prohibits massage therapists from having sex with former clients for two years. The law, one of the strictest in the nation, is meant to protect consumers from unlicensed alternative care practitioners.
Lundeen Fjellman and her husband, Kirk Fjellman, met in the late 1990s, and he was her client from October 2000 until April 2002. They began dating four months later and were married in September 2003.
"It's been a long haul," said Lundeen Fjellman, who has spent more than $13,000 in legal fees and opened a spa in Wisconsin in case her right to practice in Minnesota was rescinded. "I guess I feel like it's kind of a hollow victory because it's not over yet. My goal is to change the law."
Lundeen Fjellman said she didn't know the statute existed until the state notified her after Fjellman's former wife filed a complaint. The law for massage therapists is more restrictive than ones regulating physicians, physician assistants, physical therapists and acupuncture practitioners.
In dropping the order, the Health Department said the facts of the case "clearly do not constitute the egregious mischief or exploitation that the Legislature sought to protect the public from."
Patricia Winget, who made the ruling for the Health Department, said she would not explain why the punishment was rescinded.
Charles Samuelson, executive director of the ACLU-Minnesota -- which planned to appeal -- said it was deplorable that the decision took so long.
"They reached this conclusion only after wasting state resources on an outrageous three-year inquisition that has shattered Mr. and Mrs. Fjellman both emotionally and financially," he said.
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