Child Victims Act cases resume in Baltimore court after five-month pause

After a nearly five-month pause, child sexual abuse cases brought under the 2023 Child Victims Act resumed Friday in Baltimore City Circuit Court.

Audrey Carrión, administrative judge and chief judge of the city circuit court, paused all such cases on June 2 amid an “unprecedented influx” prompted by a new state law that sharply reduced the maximum payouts available to victims under the CVA. (Her order did not stop new lawsuits from being filed.)

That law, which benefited both governmental and private defendants, set a May 31 deadline after which the cap on damages was reduced by more than half. It was quickly passed this spring, as the Maryland General Assembly plugged a $3 billion budget hole and sought to limit its future liability for abuse claims; still, the state may owe victims billions of dollars.

The law prompted a mad dash to file lawsuits in the short window between its passage in April and the deadline at the end of May.

It also forced survivors — who often need decades to process their trauma before they are able to come forward — to make a fraught personal and financial decision quickly.

Baltimore City Circuit Court is now the venue for more than 1,400 CVA cases, more than any other jurisdiction, due in large part to cases against the state agency responsible for juvenile detention.

Carrión noted in her June order that the Standing Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure, which operates under the Maryland Supreme Court and proposes changes to rules governing state courts, was considering how best to efficiently manage these cases.

The Rules Committee in early September recommended changes to allow consolidated trials and consolidated pretrial proceedings, as well as to allow the chief justice of the Maryland Supreme Court to appoint a case management special magistrate. The court has not yet adopted those changes.

Carrión wrote in her latest order that “the wording of the proposed rules appears to preserve the administrative judges’ discretion in managing these types of cases within their jurisdiction.”

She assigned all of the cases into one of nine groups, including those filed against the city, the state, secular private schools, non-Baltimore City school systems and others.

Each group was assigned a judge who will lead a three-person steering committee with one lawyer each from the plaintiffs’ side and the defense. The committee will coordinate discovery and set deadlines for pretrial motions, among other things.

The order does not apply to the placeholder lawsuits filed by victims who also have claims in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Baltimore’s bankruptcy case, which is ongoing in federal court. The amendment to the Child Victims Act threw their claims into question, so the bankruptcy judge allowed them to file lawsuits to preserve their recovery rights before the deadline. They were all paused immediately after they were filed.

The Rules Committee made its recommendations in light of the thousands of cases alleging abuse at juvenile detention centers, despite strong objection from plaintiffs’ lawyers, who said a change to the rules is unnecessary and would only cause further delay.

The state has moved to consolidate all of those cases in Baltimore City Circuit Court. Courts allowed them to do so when plaintiffs consented, and denied the requests when plaintiffs opposed them, according to plaintiffs’ lawyers.

Lawyers from firms representing an estimated 90% of victims with claims against the Department of Juvenile Services sent letters to the Rules Committee opposing the rules.

Changing the rules “risks derailing existing progress toward the adjudication of CVA claims against the State,” wrote Benjamin Davis III, managing attorney of the Baltimore office of Slater Slater Schulman.

The Maryland Association for Justice, an organization of about 1,200 trial lawyers, also opposed the changes as unnecessary.

“The Rules, as they stand, provide the courts and litigants with the tools necessary to litigate the CVA cases and any changes could have broader implications on other case types with unintended consequences,” wrote Michael Winkelman, of McCarthy, Winkelman & Mester, in Prince George’s County.

Winkelman said the changes were “moot,” given that some courts have denied the state’s motions to transfer cases to Baltimore.

And Dennis Robinson Jr., chief administrative judge of the Baltimore County Circuit Court, asked them to include a provision that would allow administrative judges “to essentially opt out of having cases in the court for which they are responsible being included in a consolidated case management plan.”

He said his court is handling about 200 CVA lawsuits and is “not experiencing any difficulty with the management of the cases.”

A spokeswoman for the Maryland Attorney General’s Office said more than 12,000 plaintiffs have filed complaints against state agencies, and that there are about 900 cases with more than 11,000 plaintiffs against the Department of Juvenile Services and its successor agencies.

Two plaintiffs’ lawyers said they believed Carrión’s order made sense. They also said the amendment to the Child Victims Act put victims, their lawyers and the state in a tough position.

Wray Fitch, a partner at Brockstedt Mandalas Federico, who represents about 100 clients with CVA cases in Baltimore City Circuit Court, said Carrión “clearly took the time and underwent a thoughtful process (and) put together a framework that really balances judicial economy while recognizing the importance of moving these cases in forward.”

Fitch said he expects discovery and pretrial motions in most cases to conclude within a year, and for trial dates to be set promptly after. But in the meantime, he said, “I’m optimistic that both plaintiffs and defendants engage in good faith settlement discussions along the way.”

Regarding the CVA amendment that prompted the lawsuits, he said survivors viewed it as “a bit of a rug-pull.”

Jonathan Schochor, who also represents over 100 clients in Baltimore, said the court “has done a diligent job of trying to move these cases forward,” while facing a difficult situation that was needlessly “forced” by the Maryland General Assembly.

Schochor said that in May, “it was all hands on deck” to file cases before the deadline. He reiterated that he believed the law was unconstitutional, and expressed skepticism that the state will be able to defend so many lawsuits at the same time.

“There’s going to have to be a lot of negotiation,” he said.

This story was updated with comments from Wray Fitch, Jonathan Schochor and the Maryland Attorney General’s Office.