By AARON DAVIS, InDepthNH.org
Attorneys representing a man who alleges he was abused by staff at a state-run at-risk youth facility in the 1970s have filed an appeal to the state Supreme Court, asking for his day in court.
Attorneys from Manchester-based Nixon Peabody LLP and Rilee & Associates PLLC filed an opening brief and motion for an expedited appeal on Friday, asking the court to reverse a lower court ruling that blocks the state from being sued for abuse that occurred before 1985.
John Doe #1174 filed a nine-count complaint against New Hampshire in Merrimack Superior Court in November of 2024. Doe alleged that he was placed in Odyssey House, a state contractor facility in Dover at the age of 14, from 1977 to 1979. There he alleged staff sexually and psychologically abused him through constant threats and insults, strip searches with digital penetration and at least eight instances of solitary confinement for over a 12-hour period in a room with only a chair and occasionally meals.
In April, the court dismissed his case for lack of jurisdiction. At issue is New Hampshire’s law RSA 541-B, the “Claims Against the State” statute which was signed into law on July 3, 1985. That law allowed for the state to be sued and waived sovereign immunity for certain claims against the state. Part of the law was that it only applied to claims in which the events occurred after the act was passed.
Doe’s attorneys pointed to what it saw as unequal treatment in the law in their briefing: “the sexual and physical abuse of a child is not a governmental function at all, let alone one unique to government. A private actor who abused that same child would have no comparable shield.”
The attorneys argue that the question of the state’s immunity prior to 1985 hasn’t been settled and the state has already cited the dismissal of their case in seeking to dismiss other plaintiffs claims stemming from abuse by state staff in the 1970s and early 1980s.
Starting in 2020, more than 1,200 adults have sued the state over abuse that has happened in the former Youth Development Centers (YDC), now called Sununu Youth Services Center, in Manchester. In 2022, the state established a settlement fund for victims of abuse as an alternative to suing the state. In May 2024, a jury awarded $38 million to survivor Daniel Meehan, although the state is challenging that amount.