Committee set to vote on lower limits on child sex abuse lawsuits

Yahoo

02-04-2025

House Judiciary Chair Luke Clippinger (D-Baltimore City) said the amended bill on child sexual abuse claims is "fairly close to being a place where I don't know that everybody's totally happy or totally unhappy, which is ... our goal from time to time." (File Photo by Bryan P. Sears/Maryland Matters)
The House Judiciary Committee is set to vote Wednesday on an amended version of a bill that could limit the state's financial liability stemming from claims of institutional abuse.
The amendments to House Bill 1378 would lower the maximum payout claims for thousands of plaintiffs who said they were abused as children while in state custody.
Del. C.T. Wilson (D-Charles), who sponsored the 2023 law that first opened the door to the lawsuits as well as this year's bill to contain them, said he backs the changes.
'I think it strikes a good balance, without a doubt,' Wilson said. 'We are kind of fishing for ways to do it — what's best, what's constitutional? I think we came up with a very good balance. I think it allows the plaintiffs to keep going. So, yeah, I think that it does definitely strike a good balance.'
But the bill, which had a hearing in the House Judiciary Committee last week, faces a tight deadline for passage.
The General Assembly ends its work at midnight, April 7. The bill must get out of the House Judiciary and through a preliminary and final vote by the full House of Delegates, before beginning again in the Senate.
Sources said passing the bill this year gets tougher if it's not in the Senate by Thursday.
The subject matter of the bill is emotionally charged. That and concerns about potential litigation could attract lengthy committee and floor debates.
Budget-hawk Republicans on the committee worried the amended bill focuses on limiting the costs to the state rather than focusing on the victims.
'It seems what we're doing right now is we're saying, 'How can we protect the state and the budget?'' Del. Robin L. Grammer Jr. (R-Baltimore County), said during a Judiciary Committee meeting Tuesday.
'I'm not sure how a different level of justice for public versus private makes these people whole,' Grammer said. 'And in this moment, it very much seems like we're not thinking of these folks. We're actually saying, 'What are we going to do about the budget?' So, I just don't feel comfortable with this at all.'
The Child Victims Act, passed in 2023, made it easier for adults who were sexually abused as children to sue the institutions that protected their alleged abusers. The bill eliminated time restrictions on filing lawsuits both against private institutions but also state and local governments.
That law also capped claims against private institutions at $1.5 million per occurrence. Claims against public institutions – state and local government agencies – are capped at $890,000 per occurrence.
One group of lawyers claiming to represent 5,000 plaintiffs has been in negotiations with the state since 2023 with claims under that law. The total potential liability for those claims has not been made public but could easily be in the billions.
Wilson said he filed this year's bill in an attempt to reconcile the need for survivors to bring their cases to court, while addressing the unintended, potentially bankrupting consequences facing the Maryland government.
His bill would have lowered the cap on claims against the state from $890,000 to $400,000. Additionally, it proposed limiting payouts to an individual claimant regardless of the number of alleged instances of abuse.
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The amended bill changes the maximum payout for cases against public and private institutions beginning June 1. Claims filed before the effective date would be subject to the current law.
Claims against private institutions, such as private schools or religious institutions, would be capped at $700,000. Claims against government agencies would be capped at $400,000.
The amendments also eliminate the 'per occurrence' multiplier that exposes the state to billions in potential liabilities. Similar claims forced the Archdiocese of Baltimore to preemptively seek bankruptcy protection before the 2023 law took effect.
Should the amended bill pass, 'all of the different occurrences would be happening under one umbrella,' said House Judiciary Committee Chair Luke Clippinger (D-Baltimore City).
Maximum payouts under that 'umbrella' would be limited to $700,000 or $400,000 total.
Del. Lauren Arikan (R-Harford), speaking during a committee meeting, said the lower cap was too low.
'Six thousand dollars a year is offensively low given these children could not escape their abusers,' Arikan said, basing her estimates on a boy abused as a teen who lives to the average life expectancy for a male.
Attorney's fees in such cases would also be limited — 20% for out of court settlements and 25% if the case goes to court.
The amended bill asks the state judiciary to adopt rules to handle the influx of cases.
'In other words, basically signaling to them: Hey, you're going to have a number of cases. You should probably look to get together and draft rules,' Clippinger said.
The bill asks the court system to provide the legislature with an annual report on resolved cases, including the amounts paid out and a summary of the underlying claims in each case.
One of the most problematic portions of the bill as introduced was language that placed limits on damages retrospectively.
Initially, lawmakers said they received assurances from Attorney General Anthony Brown that the change would be legal. But the decision to strike the retroactive language in spite of those assurances indicates they were less certain about those claims.
'I've heard a lot from a lot of different people over the last week,' Clippinger said. 'I think that is fairly close to being a place where I don't know that everybody's totally happy or totally unhappy, which is, as has been stated, our goal from time to time.'