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	Talks to Resolve Reardon Child-Sex-Abuse Suits Break down By Arielle Levin Becker Hartford Courant October 8, 2009 http://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-web-reardon-lawsuits-1008oct09,0,6658528.story Talks to resolve scores of child-sex-abuse lawsuits involving Dr. George Reardon broke down this week, clearing the way for more than 100 cases against St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center, where Reardon worked, to go to trial. Michael Stratton, one of the plaintiff attorneys, said he and his colleagues will seek to begin trying the cases within six to nine months. "We see no way for these cases to settle," he said this morning. "We think the only way to get St. Francis Hospital's attention is unfortunately to begin trying these cases in front of a jury." More than 125 people who say they were sexually abused by Reardon have sued St. Francis, charging that the hospital was negligent in failing to stop the abuse. St. Francis officials have said the hospital did not know of the specific allegations against Reardon until 1993, when state health officials tried to revoke his license. Reardon died in 1998. Attorneys for the plaintiffs and the hospital agreed in March 2008 to handle the cases through mediation. But the two sides failed to achieve an agreement, prompting the judges overseeing the mediation to declare Wednesday that the parties were at an impasse, Stratton said. He said he expects the cases will be tried in groups, possibly dividing plaintiffs by the time period in which they were abused. The plaintiffs are represented by 16 law firms, but the attorneys will work together as a team, he said. The hospital released a statement expressing disappointment and thanking the mediators for their hard work. "Saint Francis shares the plaintiffs' disappointment that, despite the parties' best efforts, the cases could not be resolved through mediation at this time. Given the confidentiality of the mediation process, we cannot comment further," the statement said. Reardon has been accused of abusing hundreds of children between the 1950s and 1990s. Evidence of his crimes surfaced in 2007, when a homeowner renovating Reardon's former West Hartford home discovered more than 50,000 slides and 100 movie reels of child pornography. Based on the photographs and video evidence, Stratton said, it appears that Reardon may have abused about 500 children. In some cases, children were abused 40 to 50 times on visits to Reardon's office over several years, he said. Some people who say they were abused by Reardon have not filed suits because they are too old to bring a case under state law. Connecticut's statute of limitations gives victims of child sexual abuse until they turn 48 — 30 years after their 18th birthday — to bring a lawsuit. Among the people who filed lawsuits, 40 to 50 were also older than 48 when their lawsuits were filed. Attorneys have said they will pursue legal theories to allow those cases to proceed, arguing that the hospital was engaged in a cover-up that interfered with the victims' ability to know they had been injured or that they had the right to take action, and alleging that St. Francis had a higher-than-average duty toward children in their care and failed to fulfill it.
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