Judge quickly denies request to discard $38 million verdict in New Hampshire youth center abuse case

CONCORD, N.H. — The judge who oversaw a landmark trial over New Hampshire’s juvenile detention center has refused to set aside the $38 million verdict, saying the facility’s leadership “either knew and didn’t care, or didn’t care about the truth to learn’ about endemic physical and sexual abuse. .

A jury earlier this month sided with David Meehan, who claimed he was repeatedly raped, beaten and held in solitary confinement at the Youth Development Center in the 1990s. The Public Prosecution Service wants to drastically reduce the sentence. While that issue remains unresolved, the state has also asked Judge Andrew Schulman to vacate the verdict and enter judgment in his favor.

In a motion filed Monday, attorneys for the state again argued that Meehan waited too long to file charges and that he failed to prove that the state’s negligence led to abuse. Schulman quickly denied the motion, ruling within 24 hours that Meehan’s claims were timely under an exception to the statute of limitations, and that Meehan had proven “beyond a reasonable doubt” that the state had breached its duty of care regarding staff training and supervision . and discipline.

According to Schulman, a jury could easily have concluded that the facility’s leadership was “at best willfully blind to deeply ingrained and endemic customs and practices,” including frequent sexual and physical violence and “ongoing emotional abuse of residents.”

“There may be more to the story, but based on the case record, liability for negligence and breach of fiduciary duty was proven with geometric certainty,” he wrote.

Meehan, 42, went to police in 2017 and sued the state three years later. Since then, 11 former state workers have been arrested and more than 1,100 other former residents of what is now the Sununu Youth Services Center have filed lawsuits alleging physical, sexual and emotional abuse over six decades. Charges against a former employee, Frank Davis, were dropped earlier this month after the 82-year-old was found incompetent to stand trial.

Meehan’s lawsuit was the first to go to trial. For four weeks, his lawyers argued that the state encouraged a culture of abuse characterized by pervasive brutality, corruption and a code of silence. The state portrayed Meehan as a violent child, a troublesome teenager and a delusional adult who lies to get money.

Jurors awarded him $18 million in compensatory damages and $20 million in aggravated damages, but when asked about the number of incidents for which the state was liable, they wrote “one.” That prompted the state’s request to reduce the award under a state law that allows plaintiffs against the state to receive a maximum of $475,000 per incident.

Meehan’s attorneys say multiple emails they received from distraught jurors showed the jury had misunderstood that question on the jury form. They filed a motion Monday asking Schulman to set aside only the part of the verdict in which jurors wrote down “one” incident, leaving the $38 million in place. Alternatively, the judge could order a new trial based on the number of incidents alone, or offer the state the option to agree to an increase in the number of incidents, they wrote.

Last week, Schulman denied a request from Meehan’s attorneys to reconvene and question the jury, but said he was open to other options to address the disputed verdict. A hearing is scheduled for June 24.