Bill seeks to repeal attorneys’ fees caps on MD Child Victims Act cases

Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee Chair William Smith Jr. is sponsoring legislation to remove caps on attorneys’ fees for lawyers who opt to take on cases under the Maryland Child Victims Act.

“I’m unaware of any other place where we put these types of caps on attorneys’ fees, and I think it’s to the detriment of the survivors, many of whom have had their cases unaddressed because the attorney simply can’t take the case,” Smith, D-Montgomery, said during an Annapolis bill hearing Tuesday. He pointed out that the caps don’t exist on the defense side. 

In 2023, the General Assembly passed the Child Victims Act, which removed the statute of limitations to allow survivors of child sexual abuse to pursue civil action against their alleged abusers and the entities that protected them for up to $890,000 for public institutions and $1.5 million for private. This law initially removed the statute of limitations, allowing cases spanning decades to be heard in court.

Prior to the passage of the 2023 bill, sexual abuse survivors could only pursue civil actions until they turned 38.

Because of an influx of case filings, the nonpartisan Department of Legislative Services estimated at the start of the 2025 legislative session that Maryland could be on the hook for over $3 billion in settlement payments to those who survived abuse at the hands of state employees — the same year the state was facing a $3 billion budget deficit.

Addressing the press Tuesday, House Appropriations Committee Chair Ben Barnes, D-Anne Arundel and Prince George’s, said that based on discussions with the attorney general’s office, settlements will not be something the legislature “will have to deal with” in this year’s budget.

“We’re well aware of it; we understand that we’re going to have to deal with it in the years to come but probably not for fiscal ’27,” he said.

Last year, Del. C.T. Wilson, D-Charles, sponsored legislation to lower the damage caps to $400,000 for public institutions and $700,000 for private for cases filed after June 1, 2025.

Additionally, the 2025 bill, which passed, capped attorneys’ fees for those representing abuse survivors at up to 20% of a settlement or 25% of the judgment if the case went to trial. 

Smith’s 2026 bill looks to repeal those limits for prospective and retroactive cases. He said he “begrudgingly” went along with the 2025 legislation because of the “precarious” state of Maryland’s finances but thought the attorneys’ fees caps could “curtail” access to justice. 

“Understanding the large amount of resources that attorneys have to expend to get these cases off the ground, to get the research, to get the information — especially for the revived cases that happened a long time ago — it’s costly,” Smith said as he presented his bill. “When attorneys cannot be compensated for that time and expertise that they spend developing these cases for these survivors, they won’t take the cases — they can’t take the cases.” 

The bill needs to be voted out of the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee before it can be debated by the full chamber

Emily Malarkey, of the Maryland Association for Justice and Malarkey Perlin, said cases under the Child Victims Act “are expensive and take a very long time to get to trial,” noting that expert witnesses need to be retained and decades-old evidence needs to be collected.

“It’s not enough to justify taking the case in the first place when the law makes the case impossible to bring a promise that you made to these survivors,” said Malarkey. “It’s theoretical in nature only.”