Indian Mountain School, Lakeville. Photo: Google

With a slew of Connecticut boarding schools being sued for sexual abuse dating back decades, the statute of limitations is taking center stage.

The lawsuits hint at varying litigation strategies for plaintiffs working against statutory deadlines.

One of those schools got word Monday that a lawsuit alleging a former Indian Mountain School English teacher sexually abused a boy decades ago was dismissed.

While U.S. District Judge Janet Bond Arterton of the District of Connecticut's ruling—in all likelihood—closed the books on a lawsuit filed on behalf of former Indian Mountain School student Ramsay Gourd, an attorney in an unrelated case is using a different strategy as he also went up against statute of limitations rules in a decades-old sex abuse case.

In February, plaintiffs counsel Ryan McGuigan, principal of Hartford-based Rome McGuigan, was faced with presenting oral arguments to the Connecticut Supreme Court in a matter that involved several consolidated lawsuits filed on behalf of patients of a pediatrician accused of sex abuse. The doctor has since died. In that case, the victims are all now in their 40s and have several more years in which they could bring suit. But, McGuigan, citing "strategy," said he'd make the case to the justices in focusing on negligence claims—not the sex abuse claims— which has a three-year window under state law.

McGuigan maintained the negligence and sexual abuse claims were intertwined, and, therefore, the three-year statute of limitations for negligence claims shouldn't apply. It's not clear if McGuigan's strategy will prevail as the justices on the state's high court have yet to rule on the case.

While the Gourd case did include claims of negligence and infliction of emotional distress, the strategy McGuigan focused on was to made the negligence claims first and foremost and forego the sex abuse arguments.

In her 19-page ruling in the Gourd case, Arterton said the action wasn't timely since the statute of limitation had run out.

The ruling from the federal judge could have an impact on attorneys down the road who decide to pursue similar cases where the statute of limitations plays a factor.

Gourd, a former student of the pre-K through grade 9 private boarding school, joined many other students over the years who claimed now deceased teacher Christopher Simonds sexually assaulted them. Gourd claims he was sexually assaulted when he was a student from 1977-1980.

Gourd filed his lawsuit against the school in 2018. At the time, Gourd was 53 years old even though he was required to file suit up to his 48th birthday. Today, victims can file suit up to their 51st birthday. In Gourd's suit, plaintiffs counsel argued the statute of limitations should be removed under the doctrine of fraudulent concealment. Fraudulent concealment occurs when a party conceals or intentionally suppresses material information.

Gourd's counsel, Koskoff Koskoff & Bieder attorney Antonio Ponvert III, maintains in court papers his client didn't know until after the statute of limitations expired that the school allegedly knew that Simonds was a pedophile, had abused other children and did nothing about it.

Ponvert declined to comment for this story.

But, Ponvert's arguments did not sway Arterton, who wrote, "There is no genuine issue of material fact that plaintiff timely knew that he had a potential cause of action against defendant. Because it is undisputed that plaintiff was aware that he had a potential cause of action against defendant, plaintiff cannot, as a matter of law, rely on the fraudulent concealment doctrine to toll the timing of his claims."

The judge also wrote that there was sufficient information in the public realm including via media reports and other lawsuits that the school should have known that the teacher had the propensity to abuse young students before 2013, the timeframe of when Gourd was supposed to have filed suit.

Simonds has been accused of sexually assaulting several boys in the private boarding school in Lakeville. The school reached confidential settlements with two alleged victims in January 2018.

The Gourd lawsuit alleges that he and other students were known as Simonds' "boys" or "pets" and that Simonds gave them marijuana, cigarettes, alcohol, LSD and cocaine. Simonds also allegedly showed Gourd and other boys pornography and took photos of them to blackmail them into silence. The lawsuit sought, among other things, compensatory and punitive damages against the school.

The judge's ruling this week comes on the heels of numerous similar lawsuits against private boarding schools in the state. They include a suit against The Westover School alleging a teacher sexually abused a student there in 2006 and 2007; The Hotchkiss School, where several boys alleged a teacher abused them in the 1990s; and the Kent School, where a female student alleged a French teacher repeatedly sexually assaulted her in the 1980s.

Representing Indian Mountain are Robinson & Cole Hartford attorneys Bradford Babbitt, Kathleen Dion and Jeffrey White. None of the attorneys responded to a request for comment Tuesday.

Ally Morrissey is the school's director of communications. Due to concerns over the coronavirus, the school is closed. Morrissey could not be reached for comment.

Related stories:

Federal Judge Dismisses Part of Sex Assault Suit Against Indian Mountain School

Indian Mountain School Hit With Another Sexual Abuse Lawsuit