Maryland Child Victims Act: Claims Against the State and the Archdiocese of Baltimore

Legal accuracy check

Chris Schroeder, Esq.

Florida Bar #520381 · D.C. Bar

First published October 5, 2026 · Last checked October 5, 2026

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Who may be able to file

The Child Victims Act of 2023 (2023 Md. Laws ch. 5, S.B. 686, and ch. 6, H.B. 1) is codified at section 5-117 of the Courts and Judicial Proceedings Article. It took effect on October 1, 2023. It removed the limitations period for civil actions based on sexual abuse that happened to someone under 18, and it did so retroactively. Claims that had expired under the old rules could be filed again.

That reached two kinds of defendant. One is the person who committed the abuse. The other is an institution alleged to have been responsible for that person or for the child: a school, a church, a youth program, or a public agency. The State of Maryland is a defendant in a large share of the filings, many of them over the State’s juvenile facilities, which are covered in more detail on our juvenile detention page. Private schools, county boards of education and Catholic institutions are defendants in others.

Whether a particular person can bring a claim depends on more than the statute. The defendant matters, the dates matter, and for claims against the State the outcome of a case now before the Supreme Court of Maryland may matter too. Two limits stand out as of October 5, 2026: the pending immunity question for claims against the State that arose before July 1, 1982, and the bankruptcy deadline for claims against the Archdiocese of Baltimore, which passed on May 31, 2024. Both are explained below. Survivors in these cases may be able to proceed without using their full name; our guide to filing anonymously explains how courts handle that request.

Deadlines that apply

Under section 5-117 there is no general filing deadline for a civil claim based on child sexual abuse in Maryland. That rule has three practical exceptions on this page.

First, the filing date still decides which damage cap applies. The 2025 amendment set lower caps for actions filed on or after June 1, 2025 (see the next section). Second, a bankruptcy court can set its own claims deadline, called a bar date, and it controls claims against that debtor. In the Archdiocese of Baltimore case the bar date for sexual abuse claims was May 31, 2024, at 11:59 p.m. Eastern; for governmental units it was June 28, 2024. Third, the State has asked the Supreme Court of Maryland to hold that claims against it arising before July 1, 1982 remain barred by sovereign immunity, whatever the Act says about time. That case is undecided as of October 5, 2026.

Our statute of limitations guide compares Maryland’s rule with other states.

The 2025 damage caps (HB 1378)

In 2025 the General Assembly passed HB 1378, enacted as 2025 Md. Laws ch. 104. The Governor approved it on April 22, 2025, and it took effect on June 1, 2025. It lowered the limits on what a court can award in these cases and tied the lower limits to the date an action is filed.

The chapter law also replaced the words “incident or occurrence” with “claim or claims,” so the limit runs per claimant rather than per incident. For actions filed on or after June 1, 2025, attorney fees are limited to 20 percent of a settlement and 25 percent of a judgment.

What the claims allege

The largest group of filings is against the State and its Department of Juvenile Services. Plaintiffs’ law firms have publicly named the facilities in their filings, including the Charles H. Hickey Jr. School, the Thomas J.S. Waxter Children’s Center, the Cheltenham Youth Detention Center, the Baltimore City Juvenile Justice Center and the Victor Cullen Center. The claims allege that children held in these facilities were sexually abused by staff and that the State failed to protect them. These are allegations. No court has entered a finding of liability against the State in any of them as of October 5, 2026.

Not every claim is in state court. WBFF (Fox45) reported on June 27, 2025 that a federal lawsuit had been filed over alleged abuse at the Waxter Children’s Center. The suit seeks damages. Its case number and parties were not located in the records reviewed for this page, so it is described here only as reported.

The State has not answered these allegations publicly in the records reviewed for this page. When The Baltimore Banner asked about settlement in 2026, the Attorney General’s office declined to comment. The State’s legal position on a large part of the docket is in the record, though: it argues that sovereign immunity bars claims that arose before July 1, 1982 (see State v. J.C. below).

Survivor claims against the Archdiocese of Baltimore are also allegations. In the bankruptcy they are tested through claim objections rather than trials. The Archdiocese’s position in the bankruptcy is that it, its parishes and its schools are separate entities under civil and canon law (Catholic Review, June 8, 2026). Whether the parishes and schools can be reached by survivors is the central dispute in the case. Our Catholic dioceses page covers the other diocesan bankruptcies.

The 2025 ruling that upheld the Act

On February 3, 2025 the Supreme Court of Maryland decided Roman Catholic Archbishop of Washington v. Doe, Nos. 9 and 10 and Misc. No. 2, September Term 2024, together with Board of Education of Harford County v. Doe and The Key School, Inc. v. Bunker. The vote was 4 to 3. Chief Justice Fader wrote for the majority. Justice Biran dissented, joined by Justices Eaves and McDonald.

The defendants argued that a 2017 law had given them a vested right never to be sued once a set period had passed. That law barred suits against anyone other than the abuser filed “more than 20 years after the date on which the victim reaches the age of majority.” The Court held that the 2017 provision was an ordinary statute of limitations, not a statute of repose, so its expiration created no vested right. Removing it retroactively did not violate Article 24 of the Declaration of Rights or Article III, section 40 of the Maryland Constitution. Applying heightened rational basis review, the Court found the Act “bears a real and substantial relation to the problem addressed.”

The Court affirmed the circuit court judgments and answered “no” to a certified question from the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland (No. 1:23-cv-02662). The Key School and Harford County cases went back to the trial courts.

State of Maryland v. J.C.: the immunity question

The next fight is over claims against the State. On June 23, 2026 the Supreme Court of Maryland granted certiorari in State of Maryland v. J.C., No. 11, September Term 2026. The question presented is whether, because the Child Victims Act expands only the “time for filing,” sovereign immunity still bars claims against the State that arose before July 1, 1982. That date is when the Maryland Tort Claims Act’s limited waiver of immunity took effect.

Argument is set for Monday, November 9, 2026. If the State wins, claims against it for abuse before July 1, 1982 would be barred no matter when they were filed. If it loses, those claims stay in the courts. The case does not affect claims against private defendants, which never had sovereign immunity.

A related ruling has already come down for school boards. According to The Daily Record (June 25, 2026), the Supreme Court of Maryland held in Board of Education of Wicomico County v. Sturm, No. 54, September Term 2025, that public school boards are immune from some Child Victims Act claims depending on when the incident occurred.

The Archdiocese of Baltimore bankruptcy

The Archdiocese of Baltimore filed for Chapter 11 on September 29, 2023, two days before the Child Victims Act took effect. The case, No. 23-16969-MMH, is before Judge Michelle M. Harner of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Maryland. A bankruptcy filing stops lawsuits against the debtor, so claims against the Archdiocese went into a single claims process with a deadline of May 31, 2024.

How many survivors hold claims is not settled. The Archdiocese’s August 28, 2026 disclosure statement estimates “between four hundred and eight hundred” survivor claims, meaning claims it expects to be allowed after objections. Fox Baltimore reported on August 7, 2026 that between 900 and 1,000 claims had been filed. The claims agent, Epiq, publishes no claims register.

Settlement and compensation status

Claims against the State. No settlement had been reported as of July 2026, and no active negotiations either (Conduit Street, July 15, 2026). Senate President Bill Ferguson told The Baltimore Banner: “I am confident the attorney general knows the constraints of the state budget.” Cases continue in the courts while State v. J.C. is pending.

The Archdiocese of Baltimore. No plan has been confirmed as of October 5, 2026. The current figure is the Archdiocese’s own proposal. Its amended disclosure statement of August 28, 2026 says the fourth amended plan “will provide approximately $283 million to Survivor Claimants,” made up of about $78 million in cash from the Archdiocese, $20 million from co-insured entities and $185 million from the sale of certain insurance assets. The same document says further insurer settlements could raise total trust funding from $283,910,224 to between $372,481,917 and $416,757,764. Those are the debtor’s proposals and projections. The court has not approved them, and the survivors’ committee filed a competing disclosure statement of its own (Dkt. 2787) before the August 4 ruling.

Earlier figures should be read with their dates: “at least $168.9 million” in May 2026 and $246 million in June 2026, both as reported by the Catholic Review. Each was replaced by the next proposal. None of these totals says what an individual survivor would receive, and this page does not estimate it. A bankruptcy trust divides its funds under the distribution procedures of a confirmed plan, and no plan here has been confirmed.

Update log

No dated updates are published for this page yet.

Questions we are asked most

Related states and institutions

Maryland’s juvenile facility claims belong to a national pattern. Our juvenile detention page explains how these cases work, and our juvenile facilities tracker follows claims in other states. California’s revival law produced the Los Angeles County juvenile facilities settlement, approved in April 2025. The Archdiocese of Baltimore is one of several dioceses in bankruptcy; see Catholic diocese lawsuits. All institution types we track are listed on the institutions hub.

If you are deciding whether to report to the police as well as file a civil claim, our guides to civil and criminal cases and reporting abuse explain how the two differ. What filing involves walks through the steps, and trauma and healing lists support that has nothing to do with a lawsuit.