NJ Supreme Court bars sexual abuse claims against National Boys & Girls Club

Associate Justice Richard Hoffman wrote a 50-page dissent.

Nine people who say they were sexually abused as children by a counselor at the Boys and Girls Club of Hudson County cannot continue their New Jersey claims against the national Boys and Girls Clubs organization, the state Supreme Court ruled Wednesday.

The 5-2 decision does not address whether the abuse occurred or whether the Boys and Girls Clubs of America did anything wrong. The court considered only whether New Jersey has the legal authority to hear the claims against the national organization.

Survivors of child sexual abuse across the country sued the Boys & Girls Clubs of America after news broke that uncovered hundreds of reports of sexual abuse by adults affiliated with the youth organization across decades. A 2020  Hearst Connecticut Media investigation revealed that at least 351 children in 35 states were allegedly abused by people affiliated with the Boys & Girls Club. The alleged perpetrators included employees, volunteers, and other minors affiliated with the clubs.

The New Jersey Supreme Court ruling removes the Boys and Girls Clubs of America from six consolidated lawsuits. The Boys and Girls Club of Hudson County remains a defendant, and the cases against the local club can continue.

“This case tests the limits of personal jurisdiction,” Justice Rachel Wainer Apter wrote for the majority.

Personal jurisdiction is the legal term for a court’s power over a person or organization being sued.

Companies can be sued in the states where they are based. Under certain circumstances, they also can be sued elsewhere, but the claims must be closely connected to work they deliberately conducted in that state.

The Boys and Girls Clubs of America is legally based in the District of Columbia and has its headquarters in Georgia. The plaintiffs argued that the organization’s long-standing work with local New Jersey clubs gave the state’s courts authority over it.

The case involves allegations that Arthur Freudenberg, a part-time counselor at the Boys and Girls Club of Hudson County, sexually abused the plaintiffs between 1976 and 1984. The alleged abuse occurred during club-sponsored activities and at Freudenberg’s apartment.

Freudenberg was charged in the 1980s with 493 counts of aggravated sexual assault involving boys ages 11 to 13 and was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

The lawsuits were filed after New Jersey changed its law in 2019 to give survivors of childhood sexual abuse more time to sue. The change also allowed some people to file claims that had previously become too old to pursue.

The plaintiffs accused the national organization of failing to adopt adequate rules to prevent sexual abuse and failing to train local club workers to recognize and prevent it.

The Supreme Court agreed that the Boys and Girls Clubs of America had significant connections to New Jersey.

During the years covered by the lawsuits, the national organization provided the Hudson County club with sample programs involving physical education, recreation, leadership development, and alcohol abuse prevention.

It also offered help with fundraising, budgeting, board development, and employee training. The Hudson County club paid dues to the national organization.

The local club was also required to place the national organization’s name and logo on its building, letterhead, and information sent to parents and the community.

A former executive director of the Hudson County club said the branding helped create a name “that people can rely on” and “feel confident in.”

But the Supreme Court of New Jersey ruled that those connections were not tied closely enough to the alleged sexual abuse.

Freudenberg was not an employee or representative of the national organization. The national organization did not send him to New Jersey, and the alleged abuse did not happen during an event or trip organized by the national group.

The court majority said the Hudson County club, not the national organization, was responsible for hiring, training, supervising, and firing its workers.

The national organization could enforce membership standards, but those standards were adopted by a national council made up of representatives from local clubs across the country.

The plaintiffs argued that the national organization could have required local clubs to follow stronger rules protecting children from sexual abuse. But the majority said a failure to adopt a national rule was not enough to give New Jersey courts authority over the organization.

The majority warned that the plaintiffs’ argument could allow the national organization to be sued in every state where a local club operates whenever someone claims that a national policy could have prevented an injury.

During oral arguments, the plaintiffs’ attorney acknowledged that the same theory could apply if a local club employee caused a car crash and an injured person argued that the national organization should have adopted safe-driving rules. That would give state courts too much power over a national organization that is not based there, the majority concluded.

Chief Justice Stuart Rabner and Associate Justices Anne Patterson, Fabiana Pierre-Louis, Michael Noriega, and Rachel Wainer Apter were in the majority. Associate Justice Richard Hoffman wrote a 50-page dissent, which Associate Justice Douglas Fasciale joined.

Justice Richard Hoffman wrote a 50-page dissent. Justice Douglas Fasciale joined him.

Hoffman said the national organization deliberately built a presence in New Jersey, promoted local clubs as safe places for children, set operating standards, provided training, and collected dues from local clubs.

“This case is not about hauling national organizations into court for any conceivable harm caused by their local affiliates,” Hoffman wrote.

Instead, he said, the case concerns an organization that promoted its local clubs as “safe havens” for children but allegedly failed to protect those children from sexual abuse.

Hoffman pointed to the national organization’s detailed requirements for local clubs. Those requirements covered their buildings, programs, hours, staffing, and operations. A national official testified that some of the rules had “safety of young people” at their core.

The national organization also provided programs on alcohol abuse prevention during the years when the alleged sexual abuse occurred. In 1986, two years after the alleged abuse ended, it published recommendations for hiring, screening, and training workers to prevent and detect child sexual abuse.

Hoffman said those later recommendations show that the national organization could provide local clubs with rules and training on preventing sexual abuse.

The dissent also disputed the majority’s finding that the national organization did not control local clubs.

Representatives of local clubs voted on national membership requirements. But Hoffman said those requirements were still policies of the national organization. Its board could also adopt policies and take away a local club’s membership if it failed to meet national standards.

Hoffman argued that the alleged abuse was closely connected to the national organization’s activities in New Jersey because it helped build and promote a network of clubs that parents trusted to keep their children safe.

He also noted that the plaintiffs lived in New Jersey when the alleged abuse occurred and that the abuse allegedly happened in the state. Because other states have shorter deadlines for filing childhood sexual abuse lawsuits, Hoffman said New Jersey appears to be the only state where the plaintiffs can pursue their claims against the national organization.

The majority said those concerns could not give New Jersey courts power they otherwise did not have.

“To be clear: Plaintiffs’ claims will be heard in New Jersey,” Wainer Apter wrote. “They simply will not be heard against BGCA.”

Hoffman said that was not enough because the plaintiffs would lose their only opportunity to hold the national organization responsible if a court eventually found that it had failed to take reasonable steps to protect them.