BOSTON (MA)
Boston Globe
By Jonathan Saltzman, Globe Staff | November 12, 2005
One month after a Taunton man dropped a lawsuit alleging that nuns sexually and physically abused him when he was a student at the now-defunct Boston School for the Deaf, three more former students have abandoned similar claims.
Mitchell Garabedian, lawyer for the four former students and 14 others with pending claims, said yesterday that Suffolk Superior Court Judge Margot Botsford's recent ruling barring him from presenting evidence of what he called an ''air of lawlessness" at the school left him no choice but to drop the three suits.
''These cases, which include hearing-impaired and speech-impaired victims, cannot continue because of legal technicalities, and not because the abuse to the individuals did not actually occur," said Garabedian, a Boston lawyer.
He said he intended to scrutinize the remaining 14 claims to determine whether to press on. Asked whether he was optimistic any would go to trial, he replied, ''I just don't know."