Doe v. Boy Scouts of America Corp.

John DOE #1, et al. v. BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA CORP., et al.

No. X08FSTCV155015023S

Superior Court of Connecticut, Judicial District of Stamford-Norwalk, Stamford

April 20, 2018

UNPUBLISHED OPINION

OPINION

Hon Charles T. Lee, Judge

This case comes to the court on the defendants’ motion for summary judgment, based on a statute of limitations, dismissing plaintiffs’ claims against them for negligence in connection with plaintiffs’ alleged sexual abuse by their scoutmaster while plaintiffs were children. The operative complaint filed May 25, 2017, alleges that the seventeen John Doe plaintiffs and two Jane Doe plaintiffs were abused by the late Donald Dennis, while he was a scoutmaster with three Boy Scout troops in Ridgefield, Connecticut during the 1960s and 1970s. The complaint alleges that Dennis was an agent of the defendant Boy Scouts of America (BSA) and that plaintiffs’ abuse occurred as a result of BSA’s negligence in recruiting scoutmasters and in supervising them, despite knowing that pedophilia was a serious problem during that period. The complaint also alleges that the other two defendants Fairfield County Council of Boy Scouts of America, Inc., and Connecticut Yankee Council, Inc., Boy Scouts of America, were local councils during the pertinent time period, and under the supervision and control of BSA. According to plaintiffs all three organizations fraudulently concealed their knowledge of the existence of pedophiles in scouting and of the activities of Scoutmaster Dennis, which prevented plaintiffs from filing their complaint in less than thirty years after their eighteenth birthday, as required by Connecticut’s special statute of limitations for childhood sexual abuse claims, General Statutes Section 52-577d. Anticipating the instant motion, the complaint alleges that defendants’ fraudulent concealment tolled the statute of limitations pursuant to General Statutes Section 52-595 (Fraudulent concealment of a cause of action).

Defendants filed the instant motion on June 30, 2017, along with a memorandum of law and several affidavits and exhibits. Defendants contend that all plaintiffs’ claims are barred by the statute of limitations because all of the plaintiffs were between 53 and 63 years old when this lawsuit was commenced on October 8, 2015. Defendants also contend that Section 52-595 does not apply to toll Section 52-577d because the latter is a statute of repose; and, even if it does apply, plaintiffs cannot demonstrate the elements of fraudulent concealment.

Plaintiffs filed their operative opposition (# 284) on August 24, 2017, along with several affidavits from the plaintiffs and others and various exhibits (## s 280, 282, and 286). Plaintiffs contend that defendants stood in a special fiduciary relationship with plaintiffs and so bear the burden of showing that they did not have actual knowledge of Scoutmaster Dennis’s abuse and did not conceal that knowledge from plaintiffs for purposes of delay.

Defendants filed their reply memorandum on September 5, 2017 (# 287) in which they deny that they stood in a fiduciary relationship with defendants, or that the burden of proof would shift to them to disprove the elements of fraudulent concealment, or that they had any actual knowledge of the alleged abuse or concealed it from plaintiffs for purposes of delaying commencement of their suit. The court heard oral argument on November 30, 2017.

As more fully explained below, the court finds that (1) Section 52-595 is applicable to toll actions under Section 52-577d under appropriate circumstances, (2) the plaintiffs have failed to establish a fiduciary relationship between themselves and defendants, (3) even if they had done so, the burden of proof does not shift to a fiduciary as contended by plaintiffs, and (4) plaintiffs have failed to present evidence establishing that defendants fraudulently concealed knowledge of Scoutmaster Dennis’s abuse of the plaintiffs. Accordingly, the court grants defendants’ motion for summary judgment.

Undisputed Facts

Having reviewed the evidence submitted in connection with this motion, the court finds the following undisputed facts for the purposes of this motion:

A. The Plaintiffs

1. The seventeen John Doe plaintiffs allege that they were abused by Scoutmaster Donald Dennis between 1962 and 1974. At the time of the abuse, these plaintiffs were Boy Scouts with Troops 80, 90 and 172 in Ridgefield, Connecticut. Dennis was a scoutmaster with these troops at the time of the abuse.

2. The John Doe plaintiffs claim they were abused at various Scout events and venues, where Scout leaders and other adults were present. Assistant Scoutmaster, Blair Albrecht, was present and alleged to have participated in some of the events of abuse.

3. The Jane Doe plaintiffs allege that they were children in Dennis’s household and allege that he abused them in connection with his abuse of the Scouts between 1963 and 1973.

4. No plaintiff claims to have notified any defendant of the abuse.

5. The affidavit of John Doe # 15 claims that he too was abused by Dennis and that he witnessed him abusing other Scouts. The affidavit also provides, " [Paragraph] 14. I told my mother about what happened to me. [Paragraph] 15. I immediately quit boy scouts after this event. Donald Dennis ran into me several months after this occurred and threatened me if I told anyone else. I know that my mother told someone in BSA as Donald Dennis was aware and had threatened me not to do it again." (Pls.’ Ex. H, ¶¶ 14-15, # 286).

6. The instant lawsuit was commenced on October 8, 2015, when all plaintiffs were between 53 and 66 years old.

B. The Defendants

7. Defendant Boy Scouts of America is a national nonprofit organization chartered by Congress in 1916 to deliver the Scouting program to American youth through community organizations. Boy Scouts of America charters local groups known as local councils.

8. Defendants Fairfield County Council (FCC) and Connecticut Yankee Council (CYC) are such groups. FCC was formed in 1972 and ceased to exist in 1998. CYC was formed in 1998 through the merger of FCC and the Quinnipiac Councils. CYC serves Fairfield, New Haven and parts of Hartford counties.

9. The Scouting program for the region in which a local council sits is offered through existing community organizations, such as churches, schools, service clubs, or fraternal organizations. These community organizations provide the actual Scouting program for young boys.

10. When a community organization decides to form a Scout unit, it forms a local unit committee that is responsible for promoting the troop and recruiting participants. Once a local unit committee is formed, the community organization then applies to the local council for a charter, which authorizes the community organization to implement the Scouting program. The local chartered organization owns and operates its own Scouting unit, under the direction of the unit committee. The unit committee is responsible for selecting its own members and for recruiting, training, and supervising the adult leaders of the unit, including the scoutmaster.

11. Defendants deny any knowledge of abuse of plaintiffs by Dennis.

12. During the relevant period, the BSA received complaints of abuse by scoutmasters of the scouts in their charge. For many years, BSA has maintained an internal screening system in which were registered volunteers about whom complaints were filed raising questions as to their fitness. The purpose of their files is to prevent inappropriate or predatory volunteers from being reassigned to positions where they would come into contact with the boy scouts. BSA refers to this system as the Ineligible Volunteer Files; plaintiffs refer to it as the " perversion files." Defendants claim that information about these files was disclosed in a newspaper article in 1991. Plaintiffs claim they were not aware of the contents of the files until their disclosure was directed by the Supreme Court of Oregon in 2012.^[1]

13. Defendants deny any knowledge of Donald Dennis’s alleged abuse of plaintiffs. Dennis is not mentioned in the Ineligible Volunteer files. His name does not appear in any document supplied by plaintiffs in connection with this motion. No defendant has any record of alleged or suggested abuse by Dennis. However, a complaint against Assistant Scoutmaster Blair Albrecht was contained in the files.

Discussion

Our Supreme Court recently set forth the standards to be applied to a motion for summary judgment in Stuart v Freiberg, 316 Conn. 809, 822-23 (2015), " The fundamental purpose of summary judgment is preventing unnecessary trials. See Orenstein v. Old Buckingham Corp., 205 Conn. 572, 574, 534 A.2d 1172 (1987) (‘[s]ummary judgment procedure, generally speaking, is an attempt to dispose of cases in a manner which is speedier and less expensive for all concerned than a full-dress trial’). If a plaintiff is unable to present sufficient evidence in support of an essential element of his cause of action at trial, he cannot prevail as a matter of law. See, e.g., Santopietro v. New Haven, 239 Conn. 207, 225, 682 A.2d 106 (1996) (directed verdict appropriate if evidence is ‘so weak’ that ‘the jury could not reasonably and legally have found that the plaintiff had proved each of [the essential] elements’); Furstein v. Hill, 218 Conn. 610, 627, 590 A.2d 939 (1991) (directed verdict appropriate ‘when the plaintiff has failed to produce any evidence of an essential element of his cause of action’).

" To avert these types of ill-fated cases from advancing to trial, following adequate time for discovery, a plaintiff may properly be called upon at the summary judgment stage to demonstrate that he possesses sufficient counterevidence to raise a...