Youth Center Abuse Victims

$100,000,000 for New Hampshire Youth Camp Victims

Court Update – Lawyers for survivors of youth detention sexual abuse gains access to files pertinent to their cases.

Judge Andrew Schulman granted a motion that would now force the attorney general’s office and state police to comply with a subpoena that was issued by lawyers for close to 1,000 men and women survivors of physical, sexual or emotional abuse when they were children living at the Sununu Youth Services Center in Manchester.

This ruling now gives the state just 10 days either to provide attorneys with approximately 35,000 pages of investigative reports or grant them electronic access to the files.

One of the plaintiffs’ attorneys praised the judge’s decision. Lawyer Rus Rilee issued this comment:

“We anticipate that these documents will not only assist us in corroborating our clients’ claims of systemic governmental child abuse, but will also help us to understand why hundreds of abusers and enablers have yet to be indicted and arrested for decades of abuse.”

The first accusations of abuse at the Sununu Youth Services Center (formerly known as the Youth Development Center) in Manchester, New Hampshire, surfaced in the 1970s. However, it wasn’t until David Meehan, the lead plaintiff in a class-action lawsuit, came forward with his story of brutal beating and rape in 2017 that the scope of the abuse became clear. Meehan’s allegations led to 11 arrests and over 700 lawsuits against the state.

New Hampshire House Bill 1677 was passed and signed by Governor Sununu on May 27, 2022.  This fund was created to compensate hundreds of victims of physical and sexual assault that took place at various Youth Centers in Manchester, New Hampshire, including the recently renamed John H. Sununu Youth Services Center. Ten former employees of the Youth Centers in New Hampshire have been charged criminally for their terrible conduct. 

The new bill in New Hampshire allots the $100,000,000 fund for victims of physical or sexual abuse that occurred at any of the following facilities:

• New Hampshire State Industrial School
• Philbrook School
• Tobey Special Education School
• John H. Sununu Youth Services Center

According to the New Hampshire Bar Association, An arbitrator will decide amounts per claimant, but victims must give up going to court for a jury trial.

Chuck Douglas is a former NH Supreme Court Justice who offers this opinion. 

“The idea is similar to many mass tort settlement funds, such as the World Trade Center and the Boy Scouts, which were set up to avoid years and years of court proceedings and appeals. Since each claimant has endured different physical or sexual abuse, a one-size-fits-all settlement in a consumer product class action is not permitted because of the great variety of claims.”

“The YDC fund is a tradeoff between speed and some compensation, rather than years in the court system waiting to see what 12 people on a jury might decide.  It is not perfect and will not fully compensate some of those harmed.  Those who are young enough may be willing to wait years for the hundreds of trials standing between them and their day in court, and would avoid the fund process.”

How Will the Fund Process Claims?

Chuck describes how this will work:

“First, a neutral attorney will be chosen by the NH Supreme Court to serve as the Administrator of the fund. This person must be agreed to by the Attorney General and counsel for claimants, and will be paid the same as a Superior Court judge if he or she is full-time.

Claim forms, procedures, and settlement guidelines will be determined by the Attorney General.  As was done 20 years ago in the negotiations with the Diocese of Manchester by the handful of us representing victims of sexual assault by priests, we developed a matrix to help put a dollar value on the cases based on the nature of the abuse, the frequency and duration of it, and aggravating factors.  This will result in grouping of claims into values and ranges for the different types of abuse at the YDC.

For any one person who underwent sexual and physical abuse, there is a cap or limit of $1,500,000, but for physical abuse only, the limit is $150,000 in the aggregate per person.”

When Can Claims Be Filed?

By November 1 of this year, the person chosen as Administrator shall publish notice that claimants can begin filing claims on or after January 1, 2023.  

Any former resident of the YDC may then file a claim, but no family members or relatives will have standing to file a claim for any distress they experienced as a result of the abuse of a relative at the YDC.  There is a two-year window for filing of claims running from January 1, 2023 to December 31, 2024.

If a YDC claim is negotiated and settled, the claimant will have resolved the case far faster than could have been done in court.  If the claim cannot be settled with the Attorney General’s office, then it will go to the Administrator for an arbitration hearing under rules not yet fleshed out for a three-hour hearing.

Attorneys who represent claimants will be limited to not more than a one-third contingent fee on the amount recovered.  The $100,000,000 fund will last until June 30, 2032.

Post updated on January 9, 2025.

Source: https://legiscan.com/NH/text/HB1677/2022