Å˽ðÁ«´«Ã½Ó³»­

Maryland, which in 2023 passed the Child Victims Act (CVA) that allows survivors who were victims of sexual abuse as minors to sue their abusers anytime, has now cut by half the amounts that may be awarded in such claims.

Gov. Wes Moore has signed a law that amends that 2023 CVA by lowering the total damages that may be awarded in a single child abuse claim against the state, a local government or local school board from $890,000 to $400,000.

Also, the new law reduces from $1.5 million to $700,000, the total amount of noneconomic damages that may be awarded to a single claimant in a child abuse action against a private individual or entity.

Each claimant will be entitled to receive only one payment, instead of collecting for each incident of abuse.

The measure, which goes into effect starting June 1, 2025, also caps lawyers’ fees at 25% of a judgment or 20% of a settlement.

The bill passed the Senate 36-7 and the House 92-40 before being sent to the governor.

Opponents of the amendments are expected to challenge the amendments in court claiming they are unconstitutional.

Claims Against the State

The changes were made in response to concerns over the damages being awarded in child sex abuse lawsuits across the country. Last Friday, Los Angeles County officials agreed to pay $4 billion to settle nearly 7,000 claims of sexual abuse in juvenile facilities since 1959.

There was also motivation to act closer to home. The state of Maryland itself is facing by people who claim they were abused while in state custody when they were minors. Many of the claims against the state allege sexual, physical and emotional abuse decades ago by staff of the Department of Juvenile Services.

According to the state Attorney General Anthony Brown, as of on March 12, 2025, there were about 4,000 claimants seeking damages from the state under the CVA, and the potential liability under current law could range from $3.5 billion to as high as $34.0 billion if each claimant were to receive the maximum of $890,000 for each alleged incident of abuse.

The state has been warned there could be a wave of lawsuits filed in the weeks before the June 1 effective date.

According to State Sen. Will Smith, who chairs the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee, lawmakers passed the 2023 CVA in response “to a long fight to have justice for victims of child sex abuse, where our prior framework barred some of those claims if you were above the age of 38.”

“But what we could never have anticipated was just the sheer volume of cases that ensued,” Smith told The Associated Press.

Maryland passed the CVA in 2023 following the release of a report by the attorney general that revealed widespread abuse within the Archdiocese of Baltimore. After the law passed, the archdiocese filed for bankruptcy protection.

The Maryland Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the CVA in a 4-3 ruling in February.

The Maryland Catholic Conference (MCC), which represents the three dioceses of Maryland, criticized the new measure because it represents a two-tier system for victims based on whether the alleged abuse took place in a public or private space.

Noting that since the CVA went into effect the state has been hit with thousands of complaints, the MCC said now the state “appears to be the largest employer of child sex abusers in the state.”

Critics of Changes

Advocates and lawyers for sexual abuse survivors opposed the measure with the lower caps, contending that the it violates the Maryland Constitution and interferes with a vested right to bring a cause of action for sexual abuse.

The bill is a “major retrenchment of the General Assembly’s commitment to fairness in protecting the rights of child sexual abuse survivors, no matter the identity of their abuser,’ argued the Maryland Association for Justice, representing trial attorneys.

“There will absolutely be a challenge to the unconstitutional change to the CVA,” Todd Mathews, an attorney with Bailey & Glasser, one of the law firms representing more than 4,500 plaintiffs, replied when asked by Å˽ðÁ«´«Ã½Ó³»­ Journal about a court challenge. “We will be actively working to have this bill deemed unconstitutional. There are several legal avenues that we are currently exploring.”

Matthews criticized Attorney General Brown who, Matthews maintained, could have resolved the sex abuse claims against the state for a lot less than the $890,000 cap in the 2023 CVA. “However, rather than do the responsible thing for the tax payers of Maryland and resolve the cases, he used self generated fear to force a bill to be passed that he knows in clearly unconstitutional,” Matthews said.

Matthews said that while there is a “reasonable argument” for making a different cap apply to the state as opposed to private facilities, the constitutional issues are prevalent when a new bill takes away a vested right of an individual. The new law takes away this right in several ways including by changing the cap from per occurrence to per survivor and by making the amendments retroactive with an arbitrary date of June 1 for when a claimant must have a case on file, or the lower limits apply, Matthews maintained.

He did, however, leave the door open to a settlement: “We as the plaintiff’s attorneys remain ready and willing to discuss resolution, however, the State of Maryland has turned a deaf ear and a blind eye to the very Survivors they horrifically abused.”

The main sponsor of the CVA, Delegate C.T. Wilson, was himself a child victim of sexual abuse and spoke openly about his experience in pushing for passage of the bill that became law in 2023. It took a decade to pass the measure.

Wilson actually initiated the new law that amends the CVA by setting limits and curbing lawyers’ fees. He explained that his advocacy of the CVA was never about financial gain or bankrupting the government. In his testimony, Wilson said, “I’ve always said, it was never about the money. … It was about the truth and justice and restoring the dignity of those who have had it stolen from them.”

Topics Maryland