Victims’ attorneys ask New Hampshire Supreme Court to roll back YDC Settlement Fund changes

A group of people who say they were abused as children under the state’s care argue that New Hampshire officials have pulled the rug out from under them. Now, they want the state Supreme Court to intervene and make New Hampshire stay true to a promise they say was made to them.

New Hampshire’s juvenile justice system has in recent years been rocked by allegations of sexual, physical and emotional abuse spanning decades. At the heart of the scandal is the Sununu Youth Services Center, a state facility formerly known as the Youth Development Center or YDC, where hundreds say they were raped, beaten and emotionally tortured by staff. 

As a deluge of lawsuits hit the state, lawmakers in 2022 created the YDC Settlement Fund and a process in which victims can avoid a lengthy court battle in favor of mediation. They tasked an independent administrator with overseeing the process. The fund has already paid out millions to victims, though much less than if all those victims had gone through superior court and won. 

However, in 2025, after Gov. Kelly Ayotte took office, she and the Legislature made changes to the process. Instead of an independent administrator overseeing the fund and mediation, the administrator would be appointed by the governor — who can fire the administrator as she sees fit — and the attorney general would now have veto power over any settlement awards. The changes were slipped into the omnibus budget legislation enacted that summer. John Broderick, the former administrator who says he was forced out by the changes, has repeatedly accused the state of cheating victims and breaking promises it made to them when it created the fund in an effort to save the state money.

The victims’ attorneys agree. Last week, they asked the New Hampshire Supreme Court to block those changes. They argued the state entered into a binding contract with the victims, who elected to participate in the settlement fund process before the changes were made. The court heard oral arguments in the class-action lawsuit on Wednesday.

“The state made an offer,” Daniel Deane, an attorney with Nixon Peabody representing the victims, said. “More than 1,900 child abuse victims accepted that offer by filing a claim, staying thier lawsuits and suspending their place in line. One day after the final deadline (to elect to participate in the settlement process), the state changed a core part of the bargain.”

Deane argued that when the victims accepted the deal, the administrator’s decision was final, an element he referred to as “the finality of the awards.” By giving the attorney general a veto after the administrator’s decision, the state has violated a “binding contract” with the victims.

Assistant Attorney General Mary Triick, on behalf of the state, rejected the premise that the state had a binding contract, pointing to the fact that the victims had the ability to pull out in the middle of the process. She called it an “illusory contract,” a legal term that refers to a deal that is unenforceable because both sides haven’t made a commitment.

“It’s not a contract,” she said. “Because if one party can walk away at any time, then you don’t have a contract.”

Triick argued that if the Legislature wants to “do something extraordinary” and bind future lawmakers to their past decision, it must use language that makes that “unmistakably” clear. She said it did not.

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Deane countered that “that was the bargain that was struck. The state offered an asymmetrical arbitration process.” He said victims participated in the process with the promise of that asymmetrical deal.

Justice Bryan Gould expressed skepticism.

“Isn’t that true of any illusory contract?” Gould asked. “That there’s a deal that’s been struck, but if one side isn’t obligated, neither side is obligated.”

Deane disagreed.

“I don’t think that’s illusory,” he said. “I think that’s the state reneging on what they originally promised.”

While the victims’ attorneys also disapproved of the decision to change the administrator from an independent position to a political appointee under the governor’s office, that was not at question in court Wednesday.

“We’re not conceding that moving the administrator under the executive branch and making them terminatable at-will of the governor is also a breach,” Deane said. “But the finality of the awards is the most fundamental term.”

The Supreme Court is expected to rule on the case soon. Merrimack County Superior Court Judge Dan St. Hilaire previously dismissed the suit. The victims hope the Supreme Court will override the lower court.

Meanwhile, Gerard Boyle, a retired circuit court judge appointed by Ayotte to succeed Broderick as YDC Fund administrator, has restarted mediation after a pause in work. As of January, the fund doled out 425 settlements for an average of (including interest) about $560,000, according to state reports. There were 1,689 pending claims at the time. Boyle asked lawmakers earlier this year to add $55 million into the fund, which has been depleted over the years, to pay out more victims. Lawmakers gave him $20 million. It will likely cost the state much more than $55 million to compensate every victim.