Page 17 - CLT032320

NEWS MARCH 23, 2020 ¦ 17

Time Ran Out: Judge Dismisses Case
Alleging Sex Assault Decades Earlier

By Robert Storace

W Indian Mountain School, Lakeville. Photo: Google
ith a slew of Connecticut boarding schools faced with presenting oral arguments to the Connect-
being sued for sexual abuse dating back icut Supreme Court in a matter that involved several
decades, the statute of limitations is taking consolidated lawsuits filed on behalf of patients of
center stage. a pediatrician accused of sex abuse. The doctor has
The lawsuits hint at varying litigation strategies since died. In that case, the victims are all now in
for plaintiffs working against statutory deadlines. their 40s and have several more years in which they
One of those schools got word Monday that a could bring suit. But, McGuigan, citing “strategy,”
lawsuit alleging a former Indian Mountain School said he’d make the case to the justices in focusing on
English teacher sexually abused a boy decades ago negligence claims—not the sex abuse claims— which
was dismissed. has a three-year window under state law.
While U.S. District Judge Janet Bond Arterton of McGuigan maintained the negligence and sex-
the District of Connecticut’s ruling—in all likeli- ual abuse claims were intertwined, and, therefore,
hood—closed the books on a lawsuit filed on behalf the three-year statute of limitations for negligence
of former Indian Mountain School student Ramsay claims shouldn’t apply. It’s not clear if McGuigan’s
Gourd, an attorney in an unrelated case is using a strategy will prevail as the justices on the state’s high
different strategy as he also went up against statute court have yet to rule on the case.
of limitations rules in a decades-old sex abuse case. While the Gourd case did include claims of neg-
In February, plaintiffs counsel Ryan McGuigan, ligence and infliction of emotional distress, the
principal of Hartford-based Rome McGuigan, was
¦ Continued on PAGE 18

CONNECTICUT
Law Tribune