CONCORD, N.H. — “Scammed.” “Ruined.” “Disgusting.” That’s how a jury foreman learned damages in landmark lawsuit over abuse at a New Hampshire juvenile detention center could be slashed Feeling after nearly 99%.
A jury on Friday awarded $38 million to David Meehan, who claimed state negligence led to his repeated rape, beating and solitary confinement at a juvenile development center as a teenager. But the attorney general’s office is seeking a reduction under a state law that allows claimants against the state to receive up to $475,000 per “incident.”
Several distraught jurors have since contacted Meehan’s attorneys, one of whom said the state had misinterpreted the verdict. Lawyers requested an emergency hearing to resolve what they said was confusion over the sentencing form.
No hearing has been scheduled yet, but here’s some information on how the dispute unfolded.
try out
Meehan, 42, reported the crime 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 former residents of what is now known as the Sununu Youth Services Center have filed lawsuits alleging physical, sexual and mental abuse over six decades.
Meehan’s lawsuit is the first to go to trial. For four weeks, his lawyers argued that the state encouraged a culture of abuse characterized by widespread brutality, corruption and a code of silence.
The state painted Meehan as a violent child, troubled teen and delusional adult who lied to get money. Defense attorneys also said the state was not responsible for the actions of rogue employees and that Meehan waited too long to file charges.
judgment
Jurors agreed that Meehan, who filed the lawsuit promptly, was injured at the facility and that the state’s negligence caused his injuries. They awarded him $18 million in damages and an additional $20 million in enhanced damages after finding the government acted recklessly, indifferently or abused its power.
Jurors were unaware that state law caps damages at $475,000 per accident. When asked on the sentencing form how many incidents they found Meehan had corroborated, they wrote “one”.
What counts as an event?
This is where things get tricky.
In pre-sentence discussions without the jury present, the state’s attorneys argued that all of Meehan’s claims stemmed from a single incident of alleged negligence. Meehan’s attorneys insist that each act of physical or sexual abuse should be considered a separate incident, even if they occurred simultaneously.
Meehan’s attorney, David Vicinanzo, said: “Just raping a child is bad enough, but if it also involves hitting him in the head, kicking him in the ribs or other actions to make him comply, then it’s bad enough. It’s even worse, and it’s a separate incident.”
The judge at one point considered placing a list of the types of alleged abuse for each day on the sentencing form and asking jurors to determine whether harm occurred 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 an “incident,” he would consider all conduct that occurred within a particular “incident” to be an incident. That moved him closer to the plaintiffs’ point of view, but ultimately he said he would leave the matter to the state Supreme Court.
“Why go out and define something that has a 50 percent chance of going wrong if there’s no need to define it in the first place?” he said. “They can fix it, but I don’t think I have to.”
Attorney Martha Gaythwaite, representing the state, did not discuss the issue in her closing arguments to jurors. Visnanzo told the jury that Meehan was raped approximately 200 times, beaten 200 times and held in unreasonable solitary confinement for approximately 100 days.
“I want to emphasize to you that these numbers are very important,” he said.
In his oral instructions to the jury, Schulman said he did not ask jurors to list an “incident-by-incident” decision, but instead asked to “list only the number of incidents for which you believe you are liable based on the timely claim.” The verdict itself defines an incident as “a single incident in which plaintiff was injured; in answer to the previous question, for which injuries the jury found DHHS liable; for which injuries the jury found timely asserted on Issue 1.”
In answer to this question, the jury wrote “one.”
But what do they mean?
One juror explained it this way: “We wrote on the verdict form that 1 incident/injury out of 100 injuries occurred and was classified as complex PTSD,” the juror explained in an electronic message to Meehan’s attorney. the email read. “We were never told there was a cap for each incident of abuse and the way the issue was raised with us was wrong.
“The state is making its own interpretation of our ruling, and it would be incorrect for them to take our position,” jurors wrote. “David should be entitled to the $38 million we awarded him.”
In another email to attorneys, the jury foreman described a sleepless night crying after learning about the cap.
“We don’t know,” the jury foreman wrote. “I assure you that if we knew the settlement amount was calculated on a per-incident basis, our results would reflect that. I pray that Mr. Meehan realizes this and recovers to the best of his ability within an appropriate period of time. ”
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