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	Lengthening Time Limit On Abuse Claims Is A Hard Case Hartford Courant April 1, 2010 http://www.courant.com/news/opinion/editorials/hc-reardon-child-abuse-statute-.artapr01,0,3349360.story CONNECTICUT -- Hearts go out to those abused by the monster of a doctor who filmed children in explicit poses at St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center in Hartford, apparently for many years. But cooler heads should prevail over a controversial bill voted out of the Judiciary Committee this week that would relax the rules on how many years those wronged by Dr. George Reardon have to file a civil lawsuit. The bill is tailored to the doctor's victims. If it passes the General Assembly and becomes law, it would allow those whose filing time has expired to piggyback onto other lawsuits if they have documentation of abuse and similar claims. The endocrinologist has been accused of abusing hundreds of children while at the hospital from the 1960s to the 1990s. Some were patients; some were recruited for what he claimed were growth studies. More than 50,000 slides and 100 movie reels of children were discovered in his former home in West Hartford during a 2007 renovation. That would be just the kind of documentation the bill would require. Dr. Reardon can't be sued because he died in 1998. The target would be St. Francis Hospital, which is already facing scores of potentially crippling lawsuits from people who do fall within the current time limits. The hospital maintains it didn't know of specific allegations until the year the doctor left, 1993. There are questions about whether the hospital can defend itself against allegations that reach back decades. Records are likely gone, witnesses' memories have grown unreliable. Statutes Of Limitations It's because of the long-term emotional damage of childhood sexual abuse that the General Assembly in 2003 extended the statute of limitations — the time the law gives victims to file civil lawsuits — up to the age of 48 (30 years after they turn 18). That's one of the longest such statutes of limitation in the nation. Most of Dr. Reardon's victims didn't sue while he was alive because they believed they had no way of proving his abuse. Suddenly, in 2007, proof emerged. It does feel unjust that some victims can't use this evidence to seek retribution for their hurt unless this bill becomes law. But statutes of limitation serve the purpose of pushing people to bring their claims before evidence degrades and the point of justice is lost. Society's Interest In Time Limits Deadlines for civil litigation are often missed. The woman raped in college may try to file a civil suit after undergoing therapy, only to find out she's a year too late. There would be no exception for her, even if new evidence surfaced. That's partly because legislatures have to set limits on litigation or it would never end. It's also in part because society has to give victims notice that it's time to move away from retribution and toward recovery. And it's partly to give defendants amnesty after a certain period so they can throw away time sheets and other exculpatory evidence and resume their lives and business. Back when most of Dr. Reardon's crimes were apparently committed — a time when authority figures were naively trusted and when minors had until only age 20 to file a lawsuit — few institutions, if any, thought they'd have to prepare for such accusations decades hence. The sick doctor's justifiably angry victims do deserve some kind of reckoning — an apology, atonement, acknowledgment of the pain they suffered. But the bill that the Judiciary Committee passed after listening to the anguished testimony of Dr. Reardon's victims may do harm beyond the justice it could provide. That's what Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. meant when he wrote a century ago that "hard cases make bad law ... because of some accident of immediate overwhelming interest which appeals to the feelings and distorts the judgment."
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