Judge asked to question jurors who awarded $38 million in New Hampshire youth center abuse case
CONCORD, N.H. — Lawyers for a man who prevailed in a landmark case alleging abuse at New Hampshire’s juvenile detention center asked a judge Tuesday to reconvene and question jurors, some of whom have expressed dismay that the award of $38 million could be reduced by almost 99%.
A jury on Friday awarded $38 million to David Meehan, who alleged that the state’s negligence caused him to be repeatedly raped, beaten and held in solitary confinement at the Youth Development Center as a teenager. But the attorney general’s office is seeking to reduce the award under a state law that allows plaintiffs against the state to recover up to $475,000 per “incident.”
Three distraught jurors have since contacted Meehan’s lawyers, including the jury foreman, who felt “devastated” and “duped”, and another said the state is misinterpreting the verdict.
No hearing has been scheduled, but here are some things to know about how the dispute developed.
THE LAWSUIT
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 Tuesday 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. Defense attorneys also said the state is not liable for the conduct of rogue employees and that Meehan waited too long to bring charges.
THE VERDICT
Jurors unanimously agreed that Meehan filed his lawsuit in a timely manner, that he was injured at the facility and that the state’s negligence caused his injuries. They awarded him $18 million in compensatory damages and another $20 million in enhanced damages after finding that the state acted with reckless indifference or abused its power.
Jurors were unaware of state law limiting damages to $475,000 per incident. When asked on the verdict form how many incidents they believed Meehan had proven, they wrote “one.”
WHAT COUNTS AS AN INCIDENT?
That’s where it gets tricky.
In pre-sentence discussions without the jury present, attorneys for the state argued that all of Meehan’s claims arose from a single incident of alleged negligence. Meehan’s lawyers insisted that each act of physical or sexual abuse would be considered a separate incident, even if it happened at the same time.
“Raping a child alone is bad enough, but it is even worse, and a separate incident, if it is also accompanied by hitting his head, kicking him in the ribs or other things to induce him to do so to comply,” said Meehan’s attorney David Vicinanzo.
At one point, the judge considered including on the verdict form a list of the types of abuse alleged on each date and asking jurors to determine whether there was an injury and whether the state was liable. But the state argued that providing such a list would be detrimental to Meehan’s side.
Judge Andrew Schulman said he disagreed with both sides and that if forced to define “incident,” he would consider all actions that occurred in a particular “episode” as one incident. That brought him closer to the plaintiff’s position, but ultimately he said he would leave the decision to the state Supreme Court.
“Why would you define something that has a 50% chance of being wrong if it doesn’t need to be defined in the first place?” he said. “They can deal with it, but I don’t think I should.”
Attorney Martha Gaythwaite, who represents the state, did not address the issue in her closing statement to jurors. Vicinanzo told the jury that Meehan was raped an estimated 200 times, beaten 200 times and held in unwarranted solitary confinement for about 100 days.
“I want to emphasize that the numbers are very important,” he said.
In his verbal instructions to the jury, Schulman said that rather than asking jurors to list “incident by incident” decisions, he asked for “exactly the number of incidents for which you can be held liable based on timely claims.” The judgment form itself defined the incident as a “(a) single episode in which the plaintiff was injured; (b) for what injuries the jury found DHHS liable in response to previous questions; (c) on claims that the jury found to be timely claims in response to question 1.”
In response to that question, the jury wrote ‘one’.
BUT WHAT DO THEY MEAN?
One jury member explained it this way:
“I cannot say strongly enough that we as a jury unanimously agreed that David suffers from ‘one’ incident/case of complex PTSD, as a result of over 100 episodes of abuse (physical, sexual and emotional) that he suffered during his lifetime. the hands of the state’s neglect and abuse of its own power,” the juror wrote to Meehan’s lawyers on Sunday. “We wrote one incident because the PTSD will stay with David forever and can never be clearly defined by a date or a single episode.”
In an earlier post, the juror said the wording of the question was “wrong” and criticized the state for its interpretation of the answer. In separate emails to attorneys, the jury foreman described a sleepless night of crying after learning about the cap.
“We had no idea,” wrote the jury chairman. “Had we known that the settlement amount would be calculated on a per-incident basis, I can assure you that our outcome would have reflected this.”
WHAT HAPPENS NOW?
The state has not yet responded to the request to reconvene the jury. But earlier Tuesday it filed an objection to Meehan’s initial request for a hearing, saying there was no legal basis for relief regarding the jury’s “unequivocal” finding on one incident. As for the failure to notify the cap, Assistant Attorney General Brandon Chase noted that the judge expressly ruled that the jury would not be notified, consistent with judicial precedents. In criminal trials, for example, juries are typically not informed about the sentences a suspect will receive if convicted, to avoid influencing the outcome, he noted.
However, Meehan’s lawyers maintain that the judge is obligated to question the jury if it appears that a jury has misconstrued its duty.
“This is not a case where the moving party speculates about jury error and is somehow grasping at straws,” the party wrote. “It’s a case where three of the 12 jurors took their duty seriously enough to come forward and try to correct what they believe is a miscarriage of justice.