Maryland Supreme Court Affirms Ending Time Limit in Child Sexual Abuse Claims

David Lorenz, the Maryland director of SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests), talks to journalists outside the Supreme Court of Maryland in Annapolis on on Sept. 10, 2024. Brian Witte/AP Photo

The Supreme Court of Maryland voted 4–3 this week to uphold the constitutionality of a 2023 state law repealing the statute of limitations for child sexual abuse lawsuits.

A statute of limitations is a legal provision that bars the filing of a legal action after a specified period of time from the date the alleged crime or injury took place.

The court decision, issued Feb. 3, means that Maryland plaintiffs who allege they experienced sexual abuse as children will be able to sue regardless of how old they are now or when the abuse took place.

The court ruling came after Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown published a lengthy report in April 2023 that stated upward of 150 Catholic priests and individuals associated with the Archdiocese of Baltimore had abused more than 600 children since the 1940s. The abuse uncovered was “pervasive and persistent” and subject to “repeated dismissal or cover up ... by the Catholic Church hierarchy,” the report said.

During oral arguments in September 2024, the court heard three consolidated cases and considered the authority of the Maryland General Assembly under the Maryland Constitution.

The court looked at the General Assembly’s decision to pass the Child Victims Act of 2023, which modified a 2017 law that barred child sexual abuse victims from suing once they reached the age of 38—20 years after attaining the age of majority, or 18. The court also examined whether the 2017 law had the effect of permanently shielding some defendants from liability.

Defendants argued that the enactment of the 2017 law meant that they could not be held liable in child sexual abuse claims, but the court said in its decision that when the General Assembly takes away access to a remedy for a legal claim, this legislative determination does not absolve defendants from legal responsibility.

One of the defendants, the Archdiocese of Washington, argued in a brief that while “a legislature may repeal existing laws and substitute new ones ... it may not do so in a manner that destroys substantive rights that have vested under the terms of the existing law.”

The court decided that the General Assembly had authority to act when it passed the Child Victims Act of 2023, which repealed all time restrictions related to the filing of child sexual abuse claims.

Speaking for the court majority, Maryland Chief Justice Matthew Fader wrote that “the running of a statute of limitations [as in the 2017 law] does not establish a vested right to be free from liability from the underlying” events that gave rise to the legal action.

“We further hold that it was within the power of the General Assembly to retroactively abrogate that statute of limitations,” Fader wrote. “The Child Victims Act of 2023 is therefore constitutional as applied to the defendants in the three cases before us.”

Abrogation is the act of formally annulling a law.

In a dissenting opinion, Justice Jonathan Biran wrote that claims “that were untimely on the effective date of the 2017 Act, or that became untimely before the effective date of the 2023 Act, could not be revived without violating the vested rights of the affected defendants.”

Attorney General Brown praised the majority decision because it removed restrictions that stopped victims of child sexual abuse from pursuing justice years later as adults.

“Today’s decision by the Supreme Court of Maryland confirms that the passage of time will not prevent survivors from seeking justice for sexual abuse they suffered as children,” Brown said in a statement. “I am proud of the role our office played in defending this landmark statute.”

David Lorenz, Maryland director of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, also hailed the court decision, describing it as “a victory for survivors.”

“They will finally get their chance at justice and being able to expose the predators that harmed them ... and this law will allow that to happen,” he said.

The Epoch Times reached out to the Archdiocese of Baltimore and the Archdiocese of Washington for comment.

No replies were received by publication time.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.