CONNECTICUT
Connecticut Law Tribune
By THOMAS B SCHEFFEY
There was action on two fronts last week in one of the state’s biggest civil cases ever, marked by a new $15 million settlement involving dozens of plaintiffs and state Supreme Court arguments focusing on an earlier trial court verdict.
The long-running case involves St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center in Hartford, and Dr. George Reardon, who worked there for more than three decades, into the 1990s. Scores of plaintiffs said Reardon molested them as children, when they visited his office as part of a supposed child development study. Reardon died in 1999, but the hospital has been named as a defendant for not providing adequate supervision of Reardon.
Although not all the settlements have been made public, some estimates put the total damages so far at roughly $50 million.
At the state Supreme Court last week, lawyers for St. Francis Hospital tried to persuade the court to overturn the one jury verdict reached so far in the case. A man identified in court documents only as Tim Doe was awarded $2.75 million last year following a trial in Waterbury. Defense attorneys argued that there was no evidence at trial that any inkling of Reardon’s dangerousness had ever entered the hospital’s collective consciousness.
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