Tim Kearns was waiting for his daughter’s college graduation ceremony to begin when his son showed him an article on his phone about the New York State Adult Survivors Act.
It was May 2023, a year after Gov. Kathy Hochul signed the act into law, opening a one-year window for adult survivors of sexual abuse who had passed the statute of limitations to file revival action lawsuits.
In his lawsuit, Kearns alleges that Theodore Wallin, then a professor in the Whitman School of Management, allegedly sexually abused Kearns while he was a student at SU. The lawsuit alleges that Wallin’s conduct caused Kearns to suffer physical, psychological and emotional injuries.
The lawsuit — filed against Wallin and SU on Nov. 21, 2023 — also alleges that the university breached its duty to protect Kearns from injury. It alleges negligence in the university’s hiring and retaining of Wallin as an employee.
“I wanted to forget about it. I wanted to bury it, never to think about it again,” Kearns said. “I was so ashamed of what happened that I didn’t tell anybody.”
Wallin’s attorney wrote in a statement to The Daily Orange that Wallin denies the allegations brought against him. A SU spokesperson wrote in a statement to The D.O. that the university does not comment on active litigation.
Over a year after its filing, the lawsuit has faced delays because it implicates a former insurance provider for SU that has since filed for bankruptcy. Arrowood Indemnity Company was a successor to Royal Insurance Company of America, which insured SU through a general liability policy at the time of the alleged abuse, according to case documents filed by SU’s counsel.
Kearns said the lawsuit’s delays have caused him further emotional distress.
“It’s incredibly frustrating, to go from feeling validated with the filing of (the lawsuit) to an immediate feeling of being re-traumatized,” Kearns said.
Kearns’ lawsuit is seeking punitive damages for the “personal injuries, pain and suffering” of the alleged “assault, battery and sexual abuse” from Wallin.
The language of the ASA directs courts to promote the “timely adjudication” of revived actions.
Kearns, who studied in Whitman and in the Newhouse School of Public Communications, said he first met Wallin in January 1985. He reached out to Wallin to ask him to be a faculty advisor for SU’s chapter of the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity, which Kearns was a member of.
Administrators in Whitman recommended Wallin to Kearns as a potential advisor for the fraternity, Kearns said. According to Wallin’s profile on Sage Publishing, Wallin worked as a professor in Whitman for 34 years, including as chair of its Department of Marketing and head of several programs. He is also listed as a professor emeritus at Sejong University’s School of Business in Seoul on his Linkedin.
As of Wednesday, Wallin is listed as a professor emeritus in SU’s Emeriti directory.
After meeting Wallin through the context of the fraternity advisorship, Kearns described his relationship with him as that of a mentor. Kearns said he would frequently visit Wallin’s office for conversation, though he didn’t have him as a professor yet.
In the fall semester of 1986, Kearns enrolled in the course TDM365: Transportation Management with Wallin as his professor. Kearns said he was “delighted and excited” to have Wallin as a professor.
But Kearns did poorly on an exam in the class, he said — sometime between October and December of 1986, as listed in the lawsuit’s time frame. Kearns said he went to Wallin for an opportunity to bring up his grade; Wallin suggested an “oral retest,” Kearns said.
Wallin instructed Kearns to come to his office for the “retest,” Kearns said. Kearns recalled the office being empty the evening that he went. He said Wallin directed him to sit in a secluded department office area with no windows — not the personal office where Kearns had visited him before.
The lawsuit claims the alleged unwanted sexual contact occurred in Wallin’s office. Kearns clarified this claim, saying the “retest” occurred in the department office area outside Wallin’s office.
For the “oral retest,” Kearns said Wallin directed him to sit in a chair against a wall in a corner, while Wallin sat at a desk in front of him.
“He was increasingly leaning over in my direction and as the questions were being asked, and as I was attempting to answer, he moved closer and closer in front of me and started to stroke my leg, then my thigh, and then up and over my groin area and over my genitals,” Kearns said. “All the while I’m trying to answer the questions. And this continued for some time.”
Kearns confirmed that this incident constitutes the alleged abuse in the lawsuit.
Internally, Kearns was experiencing panic and paralysis, he said. Through therapy, he said he’s since come to recognize his response to the alleged abuse as dissociation.
“I was just absolutely in shock, and I was concerned about my grade. I knew that he had an amount of power over me. I didn’t understand why it was happening,” Kearns said. “I thought he was somebody that I trusted. He was at a position of power. He was a faculty member, and he had a lot of power over me, my grade, my association with the fraternity and the other people that he knew.”
After the alleged abuse, Kearns said he didn’t tell anyone. He said he lost motivation to finish college and left SU after that fall semester, still needing some credits to fulfill his degree. Though he walked in SU’s May 1987 commencement ceremony, he did not receive his degree until 1992, after he took classes to fulfill his final credits at Temple University.
In spite of the alleged abuse, Kearns and Wallin maintained occasional contact, Kearns said. The two spoke on the phone on a few occasions, and once when Kearns was back in Syracuse between 1988 and 1989, they got lunch together at a restaurant off campus, he said. Kearns said there was no mention of the alleged abuse or further unwanted sexual contact from Wallin after the fall of 1986.
Kearns said he maintained contact because he wanted to reclaim the mentor relationship he had with Wallin. But, Kearns mainly stayed away from SU, as he wasn’t able to enjoy his university ties, he said.
“One of the biggest tragedies of this was the loss of that genuine relationship that I felt,” Kearns said. “I can’t answer for (Wallin), but it’s now tainted by the feeling that all he ever wanted for me was to be his sexual gratification.”
Kearns said he has continuing issues of distrust because of the alleged abuse, among other emotional impacts he’s sought counseling for.
Image by Lars Jendruschewitz | Senior Staff Photographer
Arrowood’s liquidation enacted stays — or stops on legal proceedings — in the case. Because of the stays, neither defendant has responded to the claims in the lawsuit, Kearns and his attorney, Amina Karic, said. The original deadline for the defendants’ response was Dec. 6, 2023.
SU’s counsel also delayed the case by moving it to federal court because Kearns isn’t located in New York, but SU and Wallin are. The case moved out of the New York State Supreme Court in Onondaga County to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York.
Arrowood is implicated in the case because its policy would pay if SU settled the lawsuit or if Kearns wins at trial.
Arrowood went into liquidation on Nov. 8, 2023, according to the Delaware Department of Insurance’s website. Arrowood’s liquidation enacted an immediate 180-day stay on all lawsuits like Kearns’ that are affected by the insurance company’s policies. The original stay was set to be lifted on May 6, 2024.
On March 1, 2024, an order was filed seeking an ancillary receiver proceeding in New York for Arrowood and an additional 180-day stay. When the order was approved on Sept. 27, 2024, an additional 180-day stay was granted, further delaying Kearns’ case.
An ancillary receiver is an officer of the court who is appointed to oversee assets of a liquidated or bankrupt company in the jurisdiction that they are appointed in.
While Kearns is hoping to gain closure for his traumatic experience, the stays have meant that evidence discovery and depositions cannot move forward. Thus far, there has been one hearing for the case, on Dec. 9, 2024, in which the court instructed all parties to show why the matter should not be closed, dismissed or proceed forward.
On March 26, the stay from September ended. In a Monday status update filed to the case’s judge, SU’s counsel said that since New York’s Insurance Liquidation Bureau has not yet reviewed the case’s eligibility, it cannot engage in “substantive discussion” regarding the case. Attorneys for Wallin wrote in a Tuesday status update that they agreed with the university’s report and had nothing else to add.
Attorneys with expertise in civil lawsuits said that while these stays are common for bankrupt insurance companies, the delays can retraumatize survivors impacted by those policies. Hardeep Shergill, an attorney who focuses on civil rights, said she’s seen other insurance providers file for bankruptcy when implicated in sexual abuse lawsuits.
When insurance companies file for bankruptcy, most cases that implicate them cannot move forward until the bankruptcy is resolved, she said.
Shergill said these delays pose no downside to the defendants in these cases.
“Delays only benefit the defense here, so they obviously have no issue to continue delaying, delaying, delaying, whereas obviously plaintiffs are going to find it very frustrating,” Shergill said. “Their whole life is on hold until this case is over, basically, and it’s a type of case that, because it’s so personal, can be very traumatizing for a person to have to keep living through for years.”
Arrowood’s liquidation has impacted every case it’s involved in as an insurer. Robert Druger is part of a group of SU alumni who filed a separate lawsuit against the university under ASA on Nov. 3, 2023. The case — May et al v. SU — includes claims of negligence and negligent hiring by SU in relation to alleged abuse by Conrad Mainwaring.
Druger echoed Kearns’ frustration over the stays on the cases.
Druger, who is originally from Syracuse and is the son of SU biology professor emeritus Marvin Druger, also previously filed a lawsuit against the university in 2020 regarding alleged abuse he suffered from Mainwaring.
He said he first met Mainwaring when he was a student at Nottingham High School in the Syracuse City School District. Druger’s individual case names SCSD and its board of education, along with SU and its board of trustees.
Mainwaring, who was a participant in the 1976 Olympics, worked at SU with its track and field team and as a deputy director and dorm counselor at Brewster Hall. In February 2024, Mainwaring pleaded guilty to charges of sexually molesting boys at Camp Greylock in Massachusetts in the 1970s. He was sentenced to up to 11 years in prison.
A 2019 ESPN investigation uncovered at least 41 allegations of sexual molestation against Mainwaring, spanning schools and programs across the United States and England over 44 years. Mainwaring is named in three of nine lawsuits filed against SU under ASA.
Druger described the lawsuits as “hanging over” him because of the delays.
“You don’t talk about something for 40 years and all of a sudden it’s in your face, it’s hard to deal with,” Druger said. “It’s hard to talk about even now.”
Kearns said the lawsuit process has been an “emotional rollercoaster” after he buried the alleged abuse for decades.
Like Kearns, Druger also faced a notice of removal in the case he’s involved with, May et al v. SU.
Druger’s residence was incorrectly listed as a Pennsylvania address when first filed. The case was moved to federal district court, but in October 2024, it was remanded back to the New York Supreme Court in Onondaga County once Druger’s residence was corrected, according to case records.
Druger said he feels the removal to federal district court was a stall tactic on the university’s part.
Edward Nitkewicz, an attorney who specializes in personal injury law, said even without a bankruptcy stay, ASA cases can still take a long time. Since ASA cases’ allegations are from years ago, it can be difficult to find first-hand witnesses and documents for evidence, he said. When an involved party files for bankruptcy, it freezes the entire case, he said.
Several Catholic dioceses across the country, and the Boy Scouts of America, have filed for bankruptcy after the ASA and similar laws in other states brought forward thousands of sexual abuse allegations.
“Many of our victims that we represent understand that they wait a long time, but they try to be as patient as possible, and it’s emotionally taxing,” Nitkewicz said.
When an insurance company fails, it goes into a state-governed liquidation proceeding, said Daniel Rabinowitz, an attorney who specializes in insurance law. The state’s insurance department will take the bankrupt company under receivership, he said.
Once an insurance company is under receivership, people making claims on the policy have to seek payment from the state-run insurance fund. The court will set a deadline for people to file a claim and evaluate the claims for merit to see if the policyholder can be compensated.
Things become more complicated when a liquidating insurance company is located in one state but has policies in another. Rabinowitz said the state where the company is located usually takes the lead in proceedings, but people affected in other states still have the ability to make a claim.
The filing deadline for proof of claims involving Arrowood is May 15, according to the Delaware Department of Insurance website. Karic, Kearns’ attorney, said she has filed proof of claim with Arrowood.
Once cases move onto the litigation phase, they usually still move slowly, Rabinowitz said.
“People who are tort victims, tort meaning any kind of civil wrong like harassment or abuse or molestation or whatever, unfortunately, you get victimized twice,” Rabinowitz said. “You get victimized the first time by whoever did it to you, and then if the insurance company is insolvent, you have to wait a long time to get relief, and it’s very frustrating, I’m sure.”
Since the ASA window closed in 2023, Shergill said many cases under it are still “nowhere near” settlement. Cases like this can take anywhere from two to five years to finish, she said.
In the Monday status update filed by the university’s counsel, it maintained that no proceedings in the case could occur without the authorization of the New York Insurance Liquidation Bureau.
Kat Thomas, one of the attorneys for Druger’s cases, wrote in a statement to The D.O. that the stays prohibited litigating the cases for a year and a half, including issuing subpoenas.
“You feel helpless when you watch your clients get re-victimized by the system,” Thomas wrote. “We are relieved to know that many of the New York Supreme Court judges are aware that the stay was not extended and advising that the litigation should go forward.”
Now that the stay has been lifted, Karic, Kearns’ attorney, said she intends to progress the case by requesting evidence and depositions.
“It’s been incredibly, incredibly frustrating for all of the survivors as their opportunity to be heard, to have their stories be heard, and for justice has been thwarted by the bankruptcy proceedings and the stays, so we’re very thankful that the stay has been lifted in this case,” Karic said.
In his lawsuits, Druger said he’s not focused on money, but rather making a statement for other survivors. He said he’s eager to get the cases over with so he can move on to working on helping prevent further abuse.
“There’s no real justice in this. I can’t undo what was done, but I can make a statement. It’s not about money,” Druger said. “A lot of times money is the only thing you can do, but if you’re going to make a difference, you’ve got to fight the legal system to make a statement.”
Druger emphasized that predators will only be caught when survivors tell their stories.
Moving forward, Kearns said he wants both defendants to respond to the claims listed in the lawsuit and for evidence discovery and depositions to begin.
He said he feels the university is not taking accountability for the alleged abuse.
“There was a serious lifelong emotional distress caused by what Wallin did to me,” Kearns said. “There’s the shock of the moment and then there’s the ongoing consequences throughout my life, which continue to this day, despite decades of therapy.”