BRENTWOOD (NH)
Associated Press [New York NY]
May 3, 2024
By Holly Ramer
A New Hampshire jury awarded $38 million to the man who blew the lid off abuse allegations at the state’s youth detention center Friday, finding in a landmark case that the state’s negligence allowed him to be beaten, raped and held in solitary confinement as a teen.
David Meehan’s attorney said his client was “overwhelmed and overjoyed” by what he called the largest jury award in a civil case in New Hampshire history, though the state said the amount will be reduced to $475,000 under its law that caps damages.
“David now feels like he has a reason to live,” Rus Rilee, Meehan’s attorney, said.
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 the Youth Development Center in Manchester have filed lawsuits alleging physical, sexual and emotional abuse spanning six decades.
Meehan’s lawsuit was the first to be filed and the first to go to trial. After four weeks of testimony, jurors returned a verdict in under three hours.
“It highlights how strong all of these cases are against the state,” Rilee said. “We are going to expect a lot more quick verdicts against the state on hundreds and hundreds of more of these cases to come.”