Over two dozen men sue Calvert Hall under MD Child Victims Act

More than two dozen men have come forward with allegations of child sexual abuse by faculty and clergy at Calvert Hall College High School, the all-boys Catholic school in Towson.

The lawsuits come days after the Maryland General Assembly passed a law limiting institutions’ financial liability for claims under the 2023 Child Victims Act, the landmark law passed after the Maryland Attorney General’s Office published a report alleging decades of abuse within the Archdiocese of Baltimore.

A wave of lawsuits against schools, state agencies and other institutions is expected before June 1, when the damages for which victims are eligible are slashed by more than half.

“Today is a day that the lord has made, but there is no reason to rejoice and be glad,” Christopher “Kit” Bateman, a Baltimore County resident and Calvert Hall alumnus who is suing the school, said at a press conference Monday.

For decades, Calvert Hall leaders “either knew about what was happening or ignored bright red flags,” said Steve Kelly, of Grant & Eisenhofer, who is representing Bateman and others.

According to the victims’ lawyers, at least eight perpetrators worked at Calvert Hall continuously from 1942 to 2002, seven of whom were identified in the attorney general’s report. Three of them worked at the school at the same time in the 1970s. Three remain alive.

Bateman said he was abused in a confessional when he was a teenager in the 1970s.

Five lawsuits, including Bateman’s, have been filed against Calvert Hall in Baltimore County Circuit Court by 19 former students as of Monday afternoon, according to Maryland Judiciary Case Search.

Robert Jenner, of Jenner Law, said his group of lawyers — which includes Kelly and Emily Malarkey, of Bekman, Marder, Hopper, Malarkey & Perlin — is representing 25 plaintiffs.

A spokesperson for Calvert Hall issued a statement in response.

“We are deeply saddened and sorry that in the past young men at Calvert Hall were victims of abuse. Their suffering and pain are real and remains with them today.  Our prayers and thoughts go out to all victims, and we pray for God’s healing grace on them and their families.

“We are aware of documented cases from decades past, dating back over 50 years. While we acknowledge the gravity of those incidents, we reject any characterization of our current organization as one that creates barriers and is unresponsive. We are committed to transparency, accountability, and active listening. We take all allegations seriously and have complied fully with all requests from legal authorities, including Maryland Attorney General’s office related to its comprehensive investigation of child sexual abuse in the Archdiocese of Baltimore.”

Bateman and a team of lawyers spoke at a press conference at Jenner Law in Baltimore on Monday, urging Gov. Wes Moore to veto the bill lowering liability for both government defendants and private institutions.

The Child Victims Act entitled child sexual abuse victims to $1.5 million per occurrence in noneconomic damages if they were abused by a non-governmental defendant and $890,000 if they were abused by a governmental defendant.

The new bill was quickly passed in a matter of days at the tail end of the annual General Assembly session, which concluded at 12 a.m. April 8. For lawsuits currently in process, the new bill changes those damages from per-occurrence to per-person, regardless of what happened to them, according to the bill’s fiscal and policy note. On June 1, noneconomic damages for private defendants drop to $700,000, and total damages for government defendants drop to $400,000.

Moore has not signed it; it could become law without his signature.

Thousands of people have already alleged sexual abuse at juvenile detention centers and other state-run facilities. Their claims could expose the state to billions of dollars in damages.

Del. C.T. Wilson, D-Charles, who also sponsored the Child Victims Act, argued the bill was necessary to limit the amount the state would have to pay in settlements and verdicts. Lawmakers cut certain services and raised taxes to address a $3.3 billion budget deficit. That deficit could expand in the upcoming years.

“It was a rush job,” Kelly told The Daily Record. “They just invited the thing they were worried about . . . Every lawsuit that we’ve (been working on), it’s malpractice for us not to file it now, so the courts are just going to be flooded with these cases.”

Jonathan Schochor, an attorney who is representing two plaintiffs who sued Calvert Hall on Monday but who is not working in concert with Jenner’s group, agreed, saying he anticipated a constitutional challenge to the law. He said “it’s all hands on deck” as lawyers urgently file cases they had planned to file this summer or later.

“Is that arbitrary and capricious? Uh, yeah,” Schochor said in an interview. “We’re gonna clog up every court in the state.”

“It’s just horrendous, talking to our clients about what happened to them,” he said.

Patrick Wall, a former Catholic priest and canonical lawyer who now works as an advocate for Grant & Eisenhofer in Los Angeles, said in a brief interview after the press conference that what Bateman experienced is an “ancient crime” — solicitation in a confessional — that has been legislated in the Catholic Church since the 12th century.

Wall said he looked forward to the discovery process enabling investigations into dioceses that are not directly parties to the lawsuit.

“You can’t have eight bad guys in the same place by accident,” Wall said of Calvert Hall. “Those are purposeful decisions to put them there.”