Victims, attorneys say new caps on child sex abuse claims in Maryland will make cases not worth pursuing

Yahoo

28-04-2025

BALTIMORE — When she was attending Catholic school in Baltimore, Teresa Lancaster would vaguely warn some of her classmates of certain rooms, 'don't go in there.' But it would take decades for her to speak publicly about surviving sexual abuse.
Now, as an attorney and advocate for other survivors, she worries that new limits on how much money can come from abuse lawsuits may stop others from coming forward. Lancaster, whose story became the subject of a memoir and part of a Netflix series, argues the changes are a 'calculated' attempt to cheapen 'what our law was supposed to represent.'
'It's a liability discount, is what it is,' she said.
Two years ago, Maryland passed the Child Victims Act, which removed the statute of limitations on child sex abuse claims. This year, worried about how those cases could affect the state's budget, lawmakers cut the amount of possible damages by more than half. The changes take effect June 1.
A legal crunch has begun, as several civil attorneys dash to beat the filing deadline and consider whether they'll take on similar claims going forward. Some have said they will not.
'These cases, in the future, are not going to be worthwhile pursuing, either for the lawyer or the survivor,' said class action attorney Philip Federico.
Based in Baltimore, Federico has cases pending against the archdiocese of Baltimore and Washington, and earlier this month, he helped announce a string of lawsuits against Calvert Hall College High School. In an interview, he said with the new caps, victims won't want to go through the trauma and duration of a lawsuit.
'Those that passed the legislation, at this point, they may as well have just declared the Child Victims act null and void all together,' Federico said.
Under House Bill 1378, with sex abuse cases filed after June 1, the state's liability will drop from a potential $890,000 to $400,000. And claims against private institutions, like the archdiocese, will shrink from a $1.15 million ceiling to $700,000.
The bill surged through the Maryland General Assembly earlier this month and made it onto the governor's desk in the final days of the 2025 session. Gov. Wes Moore signed the bill on Tuesday.
'Governor Moore acknowledges the trauma survivors of child sexual assault have endured and the difficult and unprecedented circumstances surrounding this legislation,' Senior Press Secretary Brittany Marshall wrote in a statement. 'The General Assembly has carefully crafted legislation that will continue to allow the survivors to seek justice while preserving the long-term fiscal stability of the State.'
Lancaster said she missed the bill's first readings in the House of Delegates and caught up with it in the state Senate. She'd prepared an argument, as she had for many other bills over the years, but when she went to testify, she was stopped. The lawmakers would only hear from two people that day.
'It was like a gut punch,' Lancaster said, 'or like somebody dumped cold water on my head.'
To make it onto the record, another survivor, who endured years of abuse at a youth detention facility in Baltimore County, quickly jotted down six paragraphs opposing the bill. He said he didn't understand how the legislature was 'giving this very important issue such little attention.'
'This is one of the most significant Bills of this decade,' he wrote.
Maryland lawmakers, whose struggles to plug a $3.3 billion deficit defined much of the 2025 legislative session, said the state's coffers could be strained by claims against public institutions, such as the state's juvenile detention centers or the foster care system.
Del. C.T. Wilson, a Charles County Democrat who championed the Child Victims Act and sponsored this year's cap bill, said up to 6,000 claims have been made against the state since the first act passed in 2023 — lawsuits that could draw billions of dollars in settlement costs from an already overdrawn budget.
That possibility, Wilson said, would carry a heavy toll under any circumstances.
'If we weren't in a deficit, we would still be in the same situation … because of the way the plaintiffs interpreted the law,' he told The Baltimore Sun.
A victim of abuse growing up in foster care, Wilson spent years fighting for some form of the Child Victims Act. Early iterations were called the Hidden Predator Act, and Wilson said its purpose was to bring survivors' cases to civil court, where a larger range of admissible evidence could expose attackers previously unchecked.
When Wilson started the push, the statute of limitations prevented survivors from filing claims after age 25. In 2017, he was able to change the cutoff to age 38, and in 2023, with the Child Victims Act, the age limit was removed entirely.
Now, Wilson said, attorneys 'that want to capitalize on Maryland's pain' have warped the legislation's intent.
'The goal was never about the money,' he said. 'It was about getting in front of a judge so they can say their piece,' he said.
In 1994, Lancaster received a letter from an attorney hoping to learn more about attacks at her school, Archbishop Keough High. The chaplain who abused her, Father Joseph Maskell, was eventually accused of assault by dozens of students. But at the time, she said priests 'had a stronghold on the population' and the thought of public allegations 'delighted' her.
'I wanted to get justice. I wanted to expose what was happening, the depth of it,' Lancaster said, adding 'validation' from the courts was a goal for many survivors.
But for some clients, like those who grew up in foster care or with run-ins with the law, attorneys said money can be an important and meaningful form of recourse.
'These are not people of means,' said Robin Becker, an attorney with the law firm Andreozzi and Foote. 'They need this recovery. They need these damages.'
A former special victims prosecutor in Prince George's County, Becker currently represents clients in claims against county school systems, private schools like Calvert Hall and recreational facilities. She said survivors commonly tell her they want enough money to get themselves or their loved ones through college.
'They don't want to have this kind of generational cycle of problems in the family. They want to be able to make things better,' she said. 'In addition to calling out these perpetrators and naming them for what they are, this money is important to these people and to these families.'
Most firms that participate in this kind of litigation do so on a contingency basis, meaning they will not charge a client unless a favorable verdict or settlement is reached.
Until then, attorneys may front thousands of dollars in costs, expenditures that go toward building a case, investigating evidence, compiling depositions and preparing expert witnesses. Some lawyers say that prep work and payroll could run $100,000 before fees, which will also be capped under the new law: 25% if a case ends in trial and 20% with a settlement.
In a hypothetical claim against a state agency, where the maximum damage amount would be $400,000, a possible settlement could range from around $250,000 to $300,000, lawyers said. In that scenario, an attorney's fees would reach a high of $60,000, and the gap created by out-of-pocket expenses would come from the victim's take.
'Nobody would do that,' Baltimore-based attorney Rob Jenner said. 'That's fiscal irresponsibility, and a law firm could not survive taking on cases like that.'
As the Child Victims Act was being drafted, Jenner said he understood caps would be part of the compromise for a 'very conservative jurisdiction' like Maryland — according to the New York Law School, Maryland is one of eight states in the country with damage caps in tort cases. But the new limits, especially in cases involving private entities, 'blindsided' him.
He said they will create an influx of cases before June because there will be less time to vet the accusations. That doesn't mean there would be 'unworthy' claims, he said, but that the state will have to spend more money to catch up.
'I know that sounds awkward or unusual, but that's the inside baseball reality to it,' Jenner said.
Becker said the five-week crunch could also limit investigations of claims.
'Where we have one victim, there's usually a ton, and so it bars us, the law firm, from being able to follow these leads and look into and find other victims to allow them an opportunity to come forward,' she said.
Wilson, a personal injury and defense lawyer as well as a state delegate, said some recent arguments by civil attorneys were 'intellectually dishonest' and an attempt to rush and 'wear the white hats when they stood in silence for years.'
Challenging the amount of money and work put into some cases, especially those that go to settlement, he said the idea that firms would stop taking on sex abuse claims with the new caps broke his heart.
'Plenty' of attorneys, he said, would.
'Now, will they make a million dollars per case? No,' Wilson said. 'Should they? Probably not.'
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