MD Supreme Court narrowly upholds Child Victims Act

The Maryland Supreme Court on Monday upheld the 2023 Child Victims Act, which ended the statute of limitations for victims of sexual abuse to bring claims against the institutions that harbored their abusers.

The 4-3 decision, authored by Chief Justice Matthew Fader, means many abuse cases against schools, churches and other institutions can move forward. The law led to a flood of claims by victims decades after they were abused.

The decision has major implications for the Maryland state government, which is being sued by more than 3,000 alleged victims of abuse in juvenile detention centers and other locations. Lawmakers last month were warned that the state could potentially owe billions of dollars in settlements.

UPDATE: Stalled lawsuits resume after MD high court upholds Child Victims Act

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington, the Key School of Annapolis and the Harford County Board of Education had challenged the constitutionality of the law.

The case arrived at the state’s high court after conflicting rulings by courts in Montgomery and Prince George’s counties. Oral arguments in the consolidated cases were held in September in Annapolis.

The institutions argued the Child Victims Act was unconstitutional because of an obscure legal term in a 2017 law. That law extended the statute of limitations for claims against “non-perpetrator” defendants — namely, the institutions that employed the perpetrators — from 25 to 38, but raised the bar for winning damages.

It also included the term “statute of repose” in the nonbinding preamble to the law.

Statutes of repose are distinct from statutes of limitation. Maryland’s only statute of repose applies to the construction industry, protecting builders from wrongful death, personal injury and other claims after a building has been open for 20 years, according to a January 2023 presentation to the legislature by University of Maryland School of Law professor Kathleen Hoke.

The Child Victims Act repealed both the statute of limitations and the higher bar for damages.

State Del. C.T. Wilson, D-Charles, a survivor of child sexual abuse, sponsored both the 2017 law and the Child Victims Act. In a September interview, he said the “repose” term was “snuck in the bill” by an aide to a powerful lawmaker looking to protect the archdiocese.

In his opinion, Fader reasoned that the 2017 law was “an ordinary statute of limitations, not a statute of repose.” That meant it could be amended, and that the institutions did not have a vested right to be free from liability.

“Ultimately, what stands out most in the legislative history of the 2017 Act is the near complete absence of discussion of what a statute of repose is, of a legislative purpose consistent with such a statute, or of what the effect of enacting such a statute would be,” Fader wrote in his majority opinion. “Given the significance of enacting a true statute of repose, it is an understatement to say that if the General Assembly intended to do so and was aware of the consequences of doing so, it is quite odd that the legislative record would contain nearly no discussion of it.”

Fader was joined by Justices Brynja Booth, Peter Killough and Shirley Watts.

Justices Jonathan Biran and Angela Eaves, as well as specially-assigned Senior Justice Robert McDonald, who heard the case in place of Justice Steven Gould, dissented.

They wrote that “the Majority opinion fails to interpret the 2017 Act as the General Assembly wrote it. It is difficult to imagine how the General Assembly could more plainly state that (it) was a statute of repose.”

“… That vested right cannot be retroactively abrogated without violating the Maryland Constitution,” the dissent concluded.

(This story has been updated.)