Jury awards $7M in New Fairfield Boy Scout trial

December 15, 2014

WATERBURY, CONN. -- A Superior Court jury awarded $7 million Friday to a man who claimed he was sexually abused by the leader of a New Fairfield Boy Scout troop when he was a boy in the 1970s.

The $7 million is the largest compensatory damages verdict ever against the Boy Scouts of America and the first such verdict in the northeastern United States, the plaintiff's attorney said.

In addition to the verdict for compensatory damages, the jury found the Boy Scouts of America should be held liable for punitive damages, in an amount to be determined by the trial judge in a separate hearing to take place in the near future.