Next civil trial for YDC abuse scheduled for 2025

By DAMIEN FISHER, InDepthNH.org

Faced with a potentially crippling number of civil cases that could take up the court for decades, Rockingham Superior Court Judge Andrew Schulman is moving forward with a timeline of the 801 Sununu Youth Services Center (formerly known as YDC) abuse cases on his docket.

Schulman's order, issued Friday, argues that delaying the trial date is unfair, makes a mockery of the courts and ultimately prevents cases from being settled out of court. Schulman's planned YDC cases could take 66 years to complete, assuming the usual practice of trials every two months.

“In his famous soliloquy, Hamlet mentioned 'the delay of the law' as something that could drive a reasonable man to suicide,” Schulman wrote.

Schulman's court decisions often contain literary and cultural references, from Shakespeare to Charles Dickens to Dragnet.

Schulman's next civil trial, in the case of YDC survivor Michael Gilpatrick, is scheduled to begin in March 2025, with additional trials scheduled for the remainder of 2025 and 2026. Cases will be heard in the order they are filed in court, with those filed first heard first.

Schulman will change the trial's scheduled schedule if the state Supreme Court rules that a retrial is necessary in the case of David Meehan. The state has appealed Meehan's $38 million compensation award after a jury found the state liable for the horrific physical and sexual abuse Meehan suffered as a child at YDC.

Schulman's order affects only survivors suing New Hampshire for abuse related to the YDC, and not survivors suing New Hampshire for abuse they suffered while housed in agencies that contracted with the state.

About 500 such contractor-related lawsuits have been filed in court.

Schulman hopes the transition to regular court proceedings will jumpstart a settlement process for many of the survivors. He wrote that when cases stall in court, settlement talks stall as well.

“[W]When cases are tried on a regular basis, the backlog is reduced not only because some cases are actually tried, but also because many more cases are settled by the parties on fair terms sooner than would otherwise have been the case,” Schulman wrote.

This is both good news and bad news for the state. With more than 1,300 pending lawsuits and no insurance coverage, New Hampshire will be financially ruined if the remaining lawsuits result in verdicts that are even a fraction of Meehan's $38 million compensation.

On the other hand, the state's settlement fund for survivors who take a plea deal is almost depleted. New Hampshire lawmakers initially allocated $100 million for survivors and then increased that amount to $160 million. The latest report from settlement fund administrator John Broderick shows that 186 survivors have already claimed more than $95 million.

The compensation fund law provides for an annual contribution of up to 75 million dollars to the fund over the next ten years. The state therefore expects a total payout of over three-quarters of a billion dollars.

These sums may seem exorbitant if you don't know what happened at YDC. Gilpatrick testified as a witness in Meehan's trial and described beatings and gang rapes he suffered while in state custody as a 14-year-old. Meehan testified that he was raped hundreds of times by YDC staff as a young teenager. He also testified that he was beaten and forced to spend long periods in solitary confinement.