By Thomas B. Scheffey
Connecticut Law Tribune
May 13, 2011
http://www.ctlawtribune.com/getarticle.aspx?ID=40517
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| Bridgeport attorney Douglas Mahoney’s firm has handled claims for people who were abused by priests. He has the next plaintiff scheduled for trial in the sexual abuse case involving the late Dr. George Reardon and St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center. |
Despite a month-long trial, and a settlement of more than $17 million for 32 plaintiffs, the civil case against St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center is still full of inherent mysteries.
Did a Waterbury jury believe that Dr. George Reardon’s molestations of hundreds of naked children could have – or should have - gone unnoticed by hospital officials for more than 30 years?
Did the jury believe that the hospital’s expert, who claimed the psychological damage Reardon inflicted on lead plaintiff John Doe No. 2 was minimal, and that Reardon was actually contributed positively to Doe’s life?
The jury had deliberated for two days in Doe’s lawsuit when, last Monday, after a frantic weekend of negotiations, the parties announced a confidential settlement. According to those close to the case, John Doe No. 2 will collect more than $1 million and the other 31 plaintiffs represented by New Haven’s Stratton Faxon will split the rest of the $17 million.
That leaves 61 plaintiffs who still have claims pending against the hospital, which is accused of negligence for failing to properly oversee Reardon, who died in 1998.
Lawyers for a dozen different legal teams representing the remaining plaintiffs are preparing for more trials, as soon as next month. “We have a deposition set for Monday (May 16) of one of Reardon’s colleagues, and a lot of us plan to attend,” said Hartford lawyer Thomas Mullins, one of the many plaintiffs’ lawyers who watched the John Doe No. 2 trial with keen interest.
However, the fact that the jury never returned a verdict, and that Judge Daniel Shaban discouraged lawyers from speaking with jurors afterwards, means the attorneys gleaned limited insight from the long trial.
Thus, this sexual abuse case is similar to the nationwide experience in hundreds of cases brought against Catholic priests, which almost always concluded in negotiated settlements and no jury verdict. Robert I. Reardon, a New London trial lawyer, has settled cases for priest sex abuse victims and families of people who died in the massive Rhode Island nightclub fire of a few years ago. He also has four clients suing St. Francis.
“If the 32 plaintiffs who have settled average around $500,000, that is akin to the settlement averages for plaintiffs who sued the Hartford Archdiocese,” Reardon said. Federal Magistrate Judge William I. Garfinkel settled the priest cases after mediation, Reardon said. “Garfinkel met with each one of the plaintiffs, and each one knew before the settlement how much they were going to get,” he added.
Rick Kenny, of Hartford’s Kenny, O’Keefe & Usseglio, is a spokesman for the remaining plaintiffs. Settlement prospects don’t appear to have changed for the better or worse, he said.
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| New Haven attorney Paul Edwards said St. Francis hospital highlighted the research being done by Dr. George Reardon in its annual reports. During the trial, the hospital denied knowledge of Reardon’s study. |
For its part, St. Francis contends that its record demonstrates a willingness to resolve these claims involving Reardon. It points to 55 settlements reached last November with plaintiffs who did not meet the 30-year statute of limitations for filing suit in sex assault cases. Two other individual cases settled last July and in November, and the 32 Stratton Faxon plaintiffs make a total of 98 settlements.
“The notion that St. Francis is unwilling to enter into reasonable settlements is patently contrary to the demonstrable facts,” said a hospital employee familiar with the Reardon litigation.
Insurance Snags
The hospital’s trial defense team consists of four Hartford-based Day Pitney partners, James Rotondo, Paul D. Williams, Earnest Mattei and Michael Shea.
St. Francis, which describes itself as the largest Catholic hospital in New England, is being sued for negligent supervision of Reardon, an endocrinologist who photographed and molested hundreds of children in the 1960s through 1990s as part of a never-published “growth study.” In 2007, eight years after Reardon’s death, new owners discovered 50,000 slides, hidden within a basement wall of Reardon’s West Hartford home, of naked children posed suggestively. Police termed them “pornographic.”
While the Day Pitney team was trying the John Doe No. 2 case in Waterbury Superior Court, a separate group of St. Francis lawyers were attempting to smooth out insurance coverage issues that could be obstacles to plaintiffs getting paid.
Plaintiffs’ attorney Kenny said these coverage issues are frustrating. “The hospital’s general liability carrier, The Travelers, was trying to take the position that its policy didn’t apply, and St. Francis would wind up with no coverage,” he said.
The hospital’s professional liability carrier also claimed it should not be the primary insurer. “Generally in that situation, you’d put all the insurance companies in the same courthouse, the judge would say give your pitch, and then make the decision as to which policies apply,” Kenny said. That was never done here, he said, “and I still don’t understand why not.” A motion for a declaratory judgment on coverage could have been filed three years ago, when the first lawsuits were filed, Kenny said, “and it would have been resolved by now.”
The one plaintiff whose case has gone to trial, John Doe No. 2, is a firefighter. He claims he was sexually abused between the ages of 9 and 17, in Reardon’s hospital office as well as when he took vacation with the physician near Lake George, N.Y.
Under questioning by plaintiffs’ attorney Michael Stratton, Doe, his brother, and six other witnesses testified in the month-long trial that Reardon stretched and stimulated their penises, to measure and photograph them. The endocrinologist also used metal calipers to measure their testicles, and, for some patients, anally probed them with a measuring tool, as part of the never-published study.
During the month-long trial, a hospital expert witness, Anna Salter, PhD, marveled at Reardon’s study as an ingenious cover for his predatory behavior. The defense lawyers were pleased with the performance of Salter and other concluding witnesses, including Dr. Robert J. Levine, a Yale bioethicist of national stature. But some final events went against the hospital’s case.
Disputed Charge
The jury began deliberations on May 5, after Judge Shaban read them his charge on the law. After Shaban’s charge, appellate advocate Michael Shea, of Day, Pitney’s four-man defense team, vigorously protested the judge’s decision to call the key wrongdoing “corporate negligence.” The defense has argued that the case against St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center is actually one of “negligent supervision.”
Judge Shaban declined to change his wording, even when Stratton offered to have the term “corporate” deleted from the jury’s final verdict form. Then, on Friday, May 6, its second day of deliberation, the jury asked to see any documents that showed St. Francis had publicly announced Reardon’s growth study.
The jurors were given annual reports of years in which the hospital listed the growth study as evidence of its research activities. Such statements could undercut St. Francis’ contention that hospital officials had no clue as to what Reardon was doing.
“When it suited their purposes,” said Paul Edwards, a Stratton Faxon attorney, “St. Francis was bragging about the growth study. At other times, they denied all knowledge. They couldn’t have it both ways.”
For its own reasons, St. Francis chose to settle without finding out how the jury would rule.
The next plaintiff in line is insurance broker “Tim Doe,” represented by attorney Douglas Mahoney of Tremont & Sheldon in Bridgeport. Mahoney said he was heartened by John Doe No. 2’s settlement. “He went through a great deal of pain in the trial,” recounting treatments and group photography “and I’m happy for him that it’s resolved.”
Hartford solo Thomas Mullins, who represents two male cousins, said the settlement of the Stratton Faxon lawsuits aren’t necessarily a foreshadowing of what will happen to the rest of the claims. Mullins said the damages suffered by other plaintiffs are unique and substantial. He said he and other plaintiffs’ lawyers are looking forward to trial, if a fair and adequate settlement is not forthcoming.
“There are some plaintiffs attorneys who don’t have the number of cases the other firms do that are eager to go forward, and who won’t be intimidated,” Mullins said.
Lawyers at the Hartford firm of RisCassi & Davis, for example, have clients who claim their encounters with Reardon led them to received extensive electroshock therapy later in life. “There are enormous differences between the various plaintiffs’ experiences,” said one plaintiffs’ lawyer.
Another, speaking on condition of anonymity, said: “No one’s even begun to talk about what it’s like for a child to have his earliest sexual experience being masturbated by this weird old man.”
A lawyer for the defense noted that many of the plaintiffs have had difficult lives, criminal records and substance abuse problems, and some were sexually abused before, during or after being “treated” by Reardon. “You have to ask,” the defense lawyer said, “are all their problems a result of this guy?”
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