The Criminal Case Belongs to the State. The Civil Claim Belongs to the Survivor.

The Miss Hall’s School litigation and our Circle of Hope cases in Missouri show why criminal punishment and civil accountability proceed on separate tracks, and why survivors do not have to wait for one before pursuing the other.

When abuse gives rise to both criminal charges and a civil lawsuit, the two proceedings are not competing versions of the same case. The criminal prosecution is brought by the State, requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt, and seeks punishment for a crime. The civil claim is brought by the survivor, requires proof that the claim is more likely true than not, and can reach not only the alleged abuser but also the school, administrators, and others whose conduct allowed the harm to occur. That distinction, not the five months between the filings, is the real lesson of the Miss Hall’s School litigation.

Former Miss Hall’s School teacher Matthew Rutledge now faces criminal rape charges. Melissa Fares’s civil lawsuit, however, asks a broader institutional question: what did Miss Hall’s School and its former head know, what did they fail to do, and what responsibility do they bear for the resulting harm? A criminal conviction may matter, but the civil case does not depend on one. It serves a different purpose, proceeds under a different legal standard, and reaches defendants and conduct the criminal case may never address.

The factual framing here tracks Mollie’s existing discussion of Rutledge, Fares, the school, its former head, and the different burdens and purposes of the two proceedings.

Circle of Hope Shows Why the Difference Matters

We have seen this separation firsthand in our representation of former students of Circle of Hope Girls Ranch in Missouri. The State charged Boyd and Stephanie Householder in March 2021. Boyd died in June 2024 while still awaiting trial on dozens of felony charges, so the criminal case against him never reached a jury. Stephanie’s prosecution remained pending until September 2025, when she pleaded guilty to six counts of abuse or neglect of a child and seven counts of endangering the welfare of a child.

The civil track did not stand still during those years. Four civil lawsuits had already settled in July 2021, more than four years before Stephanie’s guilty plea, and additional survivors continued pursuing civil claims while the criminal cases remained unresolved. Those lawsuits did not replace the criminal prosecution, but neither did they depend upon it. They allowed survivors to pursue accountability without placing their own claims at the mercy of a criminal timetable they could not control. (https://www.kfvs12.com)

That is the practical difference. Prosecutors decide whether to charge, which charges to bring, whether to offer a plea, and when a criminal case will be tried. A survivor does not control those decisions. A civil claim gives the survivor a separate means of seeking answers, compensation, and accountability from the abuser and from the institution that enabled or ignored the abuse. One track seeks criminal punishment; the other seeks civil accountability. Neither must wait for the other to finish.