Child Sex Abuse Case Against South Jersey District, Teacher Upheld: NJ Supreme Court

GLOUCESTER COUNTY, NJ — Another alleged victim of a former South Jersey teacher convicted of child sexual assault may proceed with his civil case against the school district and other defendants, the state Supreme Court ruled.

The plaintiff, whom Patch is not naming, filed a lawsuit in Gloucester County in Jan. 2020 against the Lawrence Township School District. The plaintiff alleges that Derek Hildreth sexually abused him in the 1990s, while he was a sixth-grade student at Myron L. Powell Elementary School and Hildreth was his teacher.

The lawsuit included Hildreth (a former Clarksboro resident), the school (in Cumberland County), and district employees.

Hildreth, 60, is already incarcerated after pleading guilty to charges including first-degree aggravated assault and second-degree endangering the welfare of a child; he was sentenced to 20 years in prison in May 2013.

Prosecutors say he molested five children in Cumberland, Burlington, Atlantic, and Gloucester counties between 1999 and 2002, according to a 2013 report by NJ Advance Media.

Attorneys for Hildreth and the other defendants had appealed earlier court decisions affirming the legality of the plaintiff’s 2020 lawsuit, saying his attorneys did not file a timely notice of claim.

The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that the case may proceed to trial, citing changes to state law made in 2019 that gave child sex abuse victims a longer window of time to file lawsuits against their abusers.

Kevin McCann of Chance & McCann, LLC (Bridgeton) represented the plaintiff, and said there will be a period of discovery before trial begins.

“The decision undermines any chance the defendants have of prevailing in this case, I think,” McCann told Patch on Wednesday.

“This is the seventh case we’ve had with the same teacher and the same school district,” McCann told Patch.

Hildreth is incarcerated at the ADTC (Adult Diagnostic and Treatment Center) in Middlesex County, state Department of Corrections records show.

Jerald J. Howarth of Howarth & Associates, LLC (Parsippany) represented the defendants. Wednesday afternoon, Howarth said he was discussing the matter with his client and was unable to comment on the decision at this time.

The plaintiff's case

The plaintiff said Hildreth sexually assaulted him twice during the 1996-97 school year, but that he did not realize the full extent of harm caused by the abuse until 2016, when he was about 30 years old. The plaintiff attempted suicide twice in 2016, court filings show.

Court documents show that the plaintiff had filed a late notice of claim in 2017 against Lawrence Township School District and other defendants under NJ’s Tort Claims Act. A Cumberland County judge denied his motion without prejudice, saying it was not filed in a timely manner. The plaintiff did not refile the motion or appeal the motion order, court records show.

Under the state’s Tort Claims Act, anyone wanting to sue a public entity must file a notice within 90 days of the date of the alleged claim. Judges may still allow tort notices up to a year after the incident, or longer under extraordinary circumstances. But changes signed into state law in 2019 extended the statute of limitations in civil actions for sexual abuse claims.

The plaintiff filed his Gloucester County complaint against the district and Powell Elementary School after those new laws went into effect: specifically, amendments to the Child Sexual Abuse Act (CSAA), Charitable Immunity Act (CIA), and Tort Claims Act (TCA).

The amendments to the CSAA extended the statute of limitations for any injury resulting child sexual abuse to “37 years after the minor reaches the age of majority, or within seven years from the date of reasonable discovery of the injury . . . , whichever date is later,” court documents show, and the amendment was retroactive. State law was also amended to say that the “procedural requirements” of the Tort Claims Act “shall not apply to an action at law for an injury resulting” from sexual abuse.

Attorneys for the defendants moved to dismiss the plaintiff’s 2020 complaint, saying he did not file a TCA notice of claim in time.

On appeals, judges in the Superior Court and in the Supreme Court upheld the lower court’s decision that the 2019 amendments applied to the defendant’s complaint, and he was not required to file notice of claim 90 days after the alleged abuse. The Supreme Court remanded the case to the trial court for further proceedings.

“The plain meaning of N.J.S.A. 59:8-3(b) dictates that child sexual abuse survivors who file a CSAA complaint against a public entity after December 1, 2019 -- even if their cause of action accrued much earlier -- need not file a TCA notice of claim before filing suit,” Justice Rachel Wainer Apter wrote in the court decision Wednesday.

The Supreme Court also ruled that the plaintiff’s 2017 motion for leave did not “finally adjudicate” any action for child sexual abuse under the Child Sexual Abuse Act.

“An amendment to the CSAA allowed survivors of child sexual abuse to file a claim any time before reaching the age of fifty- five, or seven years after discovering the harm, whichever is later,” the Supreme Court explains. “The Legislature made that extended statute of limitations retroactive, reviving claims that would have been barred under the prior two-year statute of limitations. An amendment to the TCA, of paramount importance here, removed the requirement that plaintiffs bringing CSAA complaints against public entities file a TCA notice of claim within ninety days of their claim accruing.”

The Supreme Court was deciding if the plaintiff’s complaint was filed in a timely manner.

“Simply put, the Amendments became effective on December 1, 2019, and plaintiff's complaint, which otherwise would have been time-barred, was resuscitated under the newly enacted statute of limitations in N.J.S.A. 2A:14-2a,” Superior Court judges wrote in late 2021. “Additionally, plaintiff's timely complaint was now subject to the newly enacted N.J.S.A. 59:8-3(b), which specifically eliminated the need to file a notice of claim in advance of filing suit.”

The New Jersey Attorney General’s Office, New Jersey State Bar Association, new Jersey Association for Justice, and CHILD USA submitted amicus curiae briefs to the court in support of the plaintiff’s case. McCann, who represented the plaintiff, thanked them for their work in the case.

McCann added that the law office filed another suit against Hildreth, Lawrence Township SD, Powell Elementary School, and the Commission on Camps, Conferences, and Retreats, which runs The Pinelands Center at Mt. Misery.

The latest case, filed in December in Gloucester County Superior Court, alleges Hildreth sexually assaulted the defendant multiple times between 2008 and 2010, on the property of the camping ministry in Burlington County during an LTSD-sponsored overnight stay and in other places.