The judge who oversaw a landmark civil trial over abuse at New Hampshire’s youth detention center has issued a preliminary order slashing the $38 million verdict against the state to $475,000.
Rockingham County Superior Court Judge Andrew Schulman previously said reducing the amount awarded to plaintiff David Meehan by nearly 99% would be an “unconscionable miscarriage of justice." He reiterated that belief in a Nov. 4 order, but “reluctantly” granted the state's request to the cap the award and said he would enter a final judgement to that effect on Friday barring any last-minute requests from attorneys.
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Meehan's allegations of horrific sexual and physical abuse at the Youth Development Center in 1990s led to a broad criminal investigation resulting in multiple arrests. His civil lawsuit seeking to hold the state accountable was the first of more than 1,100 to go to trial. Although jurors sided with him in May after a monthlong trial, confusion arose over how much money they could award in damages.
The dispute involves part of the verdict form that asked jurors “How many incidents does the jury unanimously find the plaintiff has proven by a preponderance of the evidence?” Jurors were not informed that state law caps claims against the state at $475,000 per “incident.”
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Some jurors later said they wrote “one” on the verdict form to reflect that they believed Meehan suffered a single case of post-traumatic stress disorder resulting from more than 100 episodes of physical, sexual and emotional abuse. The state has interpreted the verdict to mean that jurors found it liable for only one “incident” of abuse at the Manchester facility, now called the Sununu Youth Services Center.
The judge has denied Meehan’s motions for a new trial focused only on determining the number of incidents or to set aside just the portion of the verdict in which jurors wrote one incident. He said an entirely new trial remains an option, but Meehan's attorneys have not requested one.
Meehan, 42, went to police in 2017 and sued the state three years later. Since then, 11 former state workers have been arrested, though one has since died and charges against another were dropped after the man, now in his early 80s, was found incompetent to stand trial.
The only criminal case to go to trial so far ended in a mistrial in September after jurors deadlocked on whether the defendant, Victor Malavet, raped a girl at a separate state-run facility in Concord.
Bradley Asbury, who has pleaded not guilty to holding down a teenage boy while other staffers sexually assaulted him in Manchester, goes on trial next week.
