By DAMIEN FISHER, InDepthNH.org
Facing a potentially debilitating number of civil trials that could consume the court for decades, Rockingham Superior Court Judge Andrew Schulman is pushing forward with a schedule for the 801 Sununu Youth Services Center – formerly called YDC – abuse cases on his docket.
Schulman’s order, issued Friday, makes the case that delaying the trial schedule is unjust, makes a mockery of the courts, and ultimately prevents cases from getting settled out of court. Schulman’s projected YDC caseload could take 66 years to work through given the standard practice of one trial every other month.
“In his famous soliloquy Hamlet cited ‘the law’s delay’ as something that could drive a sane person to suicide,” Schulman wrote.
Schulman’s court orders frequently make literary and cultural references, from Shakespeare to Charles Dickens and even Dragnet.
Schulman is set to begin the next civil trial in the case of YDC survivor Michael Gilpatrick in March of 2025, with more trials scheduled for the rest of 2025 and 2026. The cases will go to trial based on when they were filed with the first filed cases going first.
Schulman will change the projected order of trials if the state Supreme Court rules a retrial is necessary in the David Meehan case. The state is appealing Meehan’s $38 million award after the jury found the state liable for the horrific physical and sexual abuse Meehan suffered while incarcerated as a child inside YDC.
Schulman’s order only deals with the survivors suing New Hampshire for YDC-related abuse, and not the survivors who are suing New Hampshire for abuse they suffered while being housed with agencies that contracted with the state.
There are approximately 500 such contractor related lawsuits also filed in court.
Schulman hopes moving to regular trials will kickstart a settlement process for many of the survivors. He wrote that when cases languish in court, so do settlement talks.
“[W]hen cases are tried with regularity, the backlog shrinks not only because some cases are actually tried, but also because many more are resolved by the parties on fair terms earlier than they would have been,” Schulman wrote.
That is a good news/bad news proposition for the state. With more than 1,300 pending lawsuits and no insurance coverage, New Hampshire will be financially devastated if the remaining trials result in verdicts that are even a fraction of Meehan’s $38 million award.
On the other hand, the state is nearly out of money in its settlement fund for survivors who take a deal. New Hampshire legislators first set aside $100 million for survivors, then upped that to $160 million. The last report from settlement fund administrator John Broderick shows 186 survivors have already claimed more than $95 million.
The settlement fund legislation allows up to $75 million per year to be added to the fund for the next 10 years, meaning the state is anticipating a total payout of more than three-quarters of a billion dollars.
Those sums may seem exorbitant without knowing what happened at YDC. Gilpatrick testified as a witness in Meehan’s trial and recounted beatings and gang rapes he suffered as a 14-year-old in state custody. Meehan testified he was raped hundreds of times by YDC staff as a young teen. He also testified he was beaten and forced into prolonged solitary confinement stays.
