Judge St. Hilaire Sides With State Against YDC Survivors

By DAMIEN FISHER, InDepthNH

The victims of childhood sexual abuse who survived New Hampshire’s juvenile detention system can’t stop the State from changing the rules for the Sununu Youth Services YDC Settlement Fund, according to an order issued by Merrimack County Superior Court Judge Daniel St. Hilaire Friday.

St. Hilaire found the survivors cannot tell the legislature how to manage the Settlement Fund, which was created by law in 2022.

“There is no language within the [Settlement Fund] Act that expressly forbids amendments to the claims process or to the management of the administrator’s position,” St. Hilaire wrote.

Several YDC survivors were seeking a preliminary injunction as part of their lawsuit over changes Republican Gov. Kelly Ayotte approved to the Settlement Fund law that strips the authority and independence away from the position of Fund Administrator. Fund Administrator John Broderick, retired New Hampshire Supreme Court Chief Justice, walked away from his post after the changes went into effect in July, saying the job he had had been eliminated by the changes.

Under the changes, the Fund Administrator is no longer selected independently and subject to Supreme Court oversight. Instead, the Administrator is selected by Ayotte and approved by the Republican-dominated Executive Council. Further, the Fund Administrator no longer has the authority to make final settlement offers after reviewing the evidence and interviewing the survivors. Now, New Hampshire Attorney General John Formella can veto any offer.

The survivors say the changes to the Settlement Fund law were enacted after they were encouraged to drop their civil lawsuits in exchange for the settlement process. Taking away the Settlement Fund administrator’s independence from political whims and the final authority to make settlement offers violates the contract they entered into with the State.

Broderick testified at a hearing last month that taking away the administrator's independence obliterates any trust the survivors might have had in the process.

“The minute you start to wonder, ‘will I keep my job if I do this, will the Attorney General be unhappy if I do that,’ you don’t have a neural and independent process,” Broderick testified. “The defendant State gets to decide how much you get. The defendant state gets to say to the judge halfway through the trial ‘we don’t like the job you’re doing and we’re going to replace you.’”

But St. Hilaire wrote if there is a contract between the State and the survivors, it does not bind the State to operate the Settlement Fund in any particular manner, or to have an Administrator with a locked-in independence.

“While some terms in the statute indicate the creation of a contract to engage in arbitration of YDC claims, see RSA 21-M:11-a, VII(d), no language expressly states that any particular claims process will be utilized. Nor is there any language stating that claimants are entitled to the claims process or administrator role that existed at the time they filed,” St. Hilaire wrote.

David Vicinanzo, attorney for the majority of YDC survivors, said St. Hilaire made the wrong call. Vicinanzo plans to appeal to the New Hampshire Supreme Court if St. Hilaire does not reconsider his decision.

"Ultimately, [St. Hilaire] found that a government has the power to change its mind and breach its prior promises in a way ordinary citizens do not,” Vicinanzo said in a statement. “The YDC victims respectfully disagree with the order and will ask the Court to reconsider. If the Court declines to change its order, the YDC victims will appeal to the State Supreme Court.”

The Settlement Fund Act was created in order to save New Hampshire from crippling jury damages the close to 1,500 individual survivors could have sought in their civil lawsuits. The first survivor to go to trial, David Meehan, was awarded $38 million in damages. That award is currently being challenged by the State in court.

But the 2022 law capped settlement payments and only a relatively small number of survivors applied for the process. In 2024, officials like Formella sought to move more survivors out of costly superior court lawsuits and into the settlement process. In agreement with lawyers for the survivors, changes were made to increase settlement amounts, add categories of abuse that could be compensated, and make the application process easier for the survivors. By June of this year, before the deadline to file, more than 1,300 new applications came into the Settlement Fund office.

The changes, which went into effect on July 1, means that any survivor who agreed to stay their lawsuit and seek a settlement will do so under different conditions than they agreed to before the end of June. Survivor Chuck Miles testified last month that he would have never halted his lawsuit and sought a settlement if he knew these changes were coming. Miles was raped dozens of times as a child while in state custody.

“I thought Mr. Broderick was who I was going to see. Now it’s on a hold and a pause. When do I get a hold and a pause on the trauma that I went through,” Miles said. “I feel like I don’t have a choice anymore. Why would I go through this process if that person can’t give finality … I could have got closure, but the hurt and pain never go away.”

Attorney General John Formella's spokesman emailed the following comment: “The Department of Justice is pleased that the Court agreed with our arguments. The changes made to the YDC settlement fund by the Legislature rightfully bring this process in line with the way the justice system best operates. This is the most transparent, qualified, and neutral way of ensuring justice for victims and the sustainability of the fund in the long term, while prioritizing victims over the trial lawyers who, to date, have profited more than those who suffered.”

This article first appeared on InDepthNH.org and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.