By DAMIEN FISHER, InDepthNH.org

Survivors of childhood sexual abuse want the New Hampshire Supreme Court to revive their lawsuit that claims Gov. Kelly Ayotte’s changes to the YDC Settlement Fund amount to a bait and switch.

Last week, lawyers for the survivors filed the appeal, which asks the Supreme Court to reverse Merrimack Superior Court Judge Daniel St. Hilaire’s September dismissal order. St. Hilaire ruled that Ayotte’s changes to the Settlement Fund did not break any binding contract or agreement the state had with the survivors because there wasn’t one.

But Daniel Deane, a lawyer who represents the survivors, wants the Supreme Court to decide if the state broke its agreement or not.

“Did the superior court err in concluding that the State did not breach its binding contracts with each [survivor] when, effective July 1, 2025, after [survivors] had filed their Settlement Fund claims and after the Settlement Fund claims-filing process had closed based on the statutory deadline, the legislature retroactively amended the Settlement Fund Act in material ways,” Deane wrote in the notice of appeal.

The Supreme Court has not set a schedule in the appeal, and neither side has filed full briefs arguing their positions.

The dispute comes down to whether or not the state can be held to any agreement it made with the survivors.

The Youth Development Center Claims Administration and Settlement Fund was created in 2023 by the legislature to deal with scores of people who were abused as children held in the state’s juvenile justice system. But survivors were initially reluctant to put their lawsuits against the state on hold and enter into the settlement process.

In 2024, New Hampshire Attorney General John Formella reached a deal with lawyers for the survivors, according to testimony in the case. In exchange for certain changes to the fund process, the lawyers agreed to encourage their clients to file for settlement applications. In order to file for a settlement, the survivors first had to halt their lawsuits against the state.

The agreed changes included increasing the amount of money the survivors would be able to receive, as well as setting up the fund administrator as an independent position and giving the administrator final authority to make settlement decisions.

The deal worked, and as the June 30, 2025, deadline to apply for a settlement approached, more survivors were opting to go to the fund program. But Ayotte, backed by Formella, pushed last-minute changes to the fund rules, which took effect July 1, after close to 1,500 survivors had already filed settlement applications.

Those changes stripped the administrator’s independence and authority, making the position answerable to Ayotte. The changes also give Formella the authority to overrule any offer the administrator makes to survivors.

These changes prompted John Broderick, former chief justice of the New Hampshire Superior Court, to announce he was no longer the administrator since the position had been eliminated by the changes. Broderick testified in August for the survivors that the state’s changes are fundamentally unjust.

“It is fundamentally wrong for an interested party, in this case the state of New Hampshire, whose employees abused people for over 50 years when they were children, to say, ‘We know you got an award, but we’re not going to allow you to keep it,’” Broderick said during an August hearing.

As of the end of December, the Settlement Fund has entered into 425 agreements with survivors valued at close to $240 million, with an additional 1,600 settlement claims still pending.