Seventh-day Adventist Church-linked West Virginia boarding school abuse lawsuits settled for $50 million

The Seventh-day Adventist Church has been implicated in a lawsuit involving widespread abuse at a former boarding school in West Virginia. The case, which has now settled for approximately $50 million, involves allegations of sexual, physical, and mental abuse against former students at Miracle Meadows School, a facility that operated as a ministry of the church. The school, which closed in 2014, has been the subject of multiple lawsuits and investigations over the years.

The plaintiffs, now adults, described their experiences as traumatic and inhumane. They allege that children were subjected to severe mistreatment, including being chained and shackled to beds, confined in small isolation rooms for extended periods, and routinely beaten. Other abuses included sexual assault, starvation, and forced manual labor. Some students were reportedly not provided with toilet paper, forcing them to remain in their own filth or use their clothing for hygiene.

The lawsuit, which was filed in 2022, named the school’s co-founder and its operating entities. Attorneys representing the plaintiffs described the abuse as “gruesome and unfathomable,” with one lawyer stating that the events “wouldn’t be believed in a movie.” The case was part of a broader pattern of abuse, as an earlier lawsuit involving 29 students had already been settled in 2020 for $52 million.

The legal battle was influenced by changes in state law that extended the statute of limitations for abuse claims to age 36. This change allowed additional claims to be filed, including allegations that some children as young as 7 to 12 contracted sexually transmitted diseases from staff members. Some students were reportedly forced to have abortions after becoming pregnant by staff.

Miracle Meadows was founded in 1988 and operated under the auspices of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. The school was closed in 2014 following an incident in which a student ingested a cleaning product and was hospitalized, prompting an investigation. The school’s state-recognized education status was revoked in August 2014.

The school’s co-founder, Susan Gayle Clark, was sentenced in 2016 to six months in jail and five years of probation after pleading guilty to child neglect charges. In the five years preceding the school’s closure, more than a dozen complaints of abuse and mistreatment were filed with the state, though many were not pursued due to the lack of formal charges.

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