SACRAMENTO (CA)
National Catholic Register - EWTN [Irondale AL]
March 21, 2025
By Tom McFeely
In contrast to his stance in 2019 with respect to legislation that opened a three-year window for filing historical sexual-abuse lawsuits, the California governor vetoed a similar recent bill.
California Gov. Gavin Newson was notably unsympathetic to arguments articulated in 2019 by the state’s Catholic leaders against state bill A.B. 218, which opened a three-year statute-of-limitations window in January 2020 to facilitate civil lawsuits for decades-old allegations of sexual abuse.
But when a similar bill was passed last year by the California Legislature, opening a shorter one-year window for lawsuits filed by persons who allege they were sexually abused in the state’s juvenile facilities, Newsom vetoed the legislation — citing arguments very similar to the ones that Church leaders unsuccessfully articulated against A.B. 218’s application to Catholic institutions.
The 2024 bill was prompted by the substantial number of lawsuits that were filed against juvenile facilities during the last three-year window, the Los Angeles Times reported, and would have allowed additional victims to sue for compensation for sexual abuse that occurred a substantial number of years earlier at juvenile detention facilities and probation camps.
Such older claims are largely excluded from the permanent legal framework mandated for sexual-abuse lawsuits by A.B. 218. Its provisions allow victims to sue only until they turn 40, or within five years of learning of a mental-health issue associated with their sexual abuse.
According to a letter explaining his opposition to opening a new statute-of-limitations window, Newsom said he vetoed the 2024 bill because “I am concerned that again reviving the statute of limitations for these individuals, even for one year, will invite future legislation seeking to revive claims for other affected groups, both in the immediate future and in the years beyond. Statutes of limitations recognize that, as time passes, physical and documentary evidence may be lost and witnesses may die, no longer remember key facts, or otherwise no longer be available to testify, potentially prejudicing the ability of a party to present its case in court.”
Newsom said that “having recently provided a three-year window for all victims of past abuse to bring claims, I am concerned that immediately reopening the claims period establishes a precedent for perpetually reopening claims periods for claims well in the past, for which key evidence may have been lost or no longer available.”
However, Newsom’s justification for his veto closely parallels the central arguments articulated by the bishops of California when A.B. 218 was debated and passed by the state Legislature in 2019. They objected it was unfair to allow a new round of claims against Catholic institutions because they had already been subject to a similar process in 2002.
Nine California dioceses and archdioceses restated these objections in 2022, during their protracted and ultimately unsuccessful court challenge against A.B. 218. Describing it as “an unconstitutional double-revival regime,” the dioceses stressed that they had already engaged with the one-year statute-of-limitations window initiated in 2002. According to the dioceses, that process generated more than 1,000 lawsuits against Catholic institutions dating back to as early as the 1930s, and it resulted in “a series of settlements that paid out over a billion dollars without regard to the validity of any individual claim.”
The dioceses also noted that after the 2002 window closed, the state tried three other times to create another window to allow more lapsed claims to proceed against Catholic institutions. But unlike Newsom in 2019, then-California Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed all three bills, describing the legislation he vetoed in 2013 as “too open-ended and unfair.”
Costly Financial Burden
Newsom’s 2024 veto appears directly linked to the massive financial costs now being incurred by public institutions, as a result of sexual-abuse claims filed recently against local governments and school boards.
Los Angeles County is one of the hardest-hit entities. A record number of 2,765 lawsuits were filed against the county last year, the Los Angeles Times reported Feb. 6, “with spending on outside attorneys ballooning to defend against a deluge of child sex abuse claims.”
Almost half of the claims were filed against the county’s Department of Children and Family Services and its probation and sheriffs departments, which “have been hit with thousands of lawsuits in recent years alleging that children were sexually abused in foster homes and at probation facilities and a former children’s shelter.”
In a March 4 letter, Los Angeles County Chief Executive Fesia Davenport cited the flood of sexual-abuse lawsuits stemming from A.B. 218 as one of the chief factors that have placed “enormous pressure” on the county’s $45-billion budget. Warning “the situation could devolve into a fiscal crisis,” Davenport’s letter recommended the county institute a hiring freeze and a freeze on non-essential services and purchases.
California’s public schools are also reeling from the financial fallout of the sexual-abuse claims filed against them during the three-year window.
According to a report titled “Childhood Sexual Assault: Implications for California Public Agencies,” released Jan. 31 by the state’s Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team (FCMAT), some state school districts are now facing “catastrophic fiscal consequences as a result of uninsured AB 218 revival claims.” According to the report, the state’s public-school system as a whole “will survive the challenge presented by the claims of childhood sexual assault. But individual school districts, charter schools and other agencies may not.”
The report, which did not name specific school districts or schools that might not be able to withstand the financial burden stemming from abuse settlements, estimates the overall dollar value of claims filed to date against school districts at between $2 and $3 billion.
As well as having to pay for uninsured claims, school districts and schools now also face the burden of insurance premiums that have skyrocketed by more than 700% over the last decade.
A Feb. 10 article published by EdSource.org reported that when A.B. 218 was under consideration, many legislators were dismissive of the potentially devastating consequences for school districts because they mistakenly believed insurance companies would be required to foot the bill for all of the settlements.
“We have called upon the state to develop a safety net to defray costs that threaten school districts with insolvency,” Troy Flint, chief of communications for the California School Boards Association, told EdSource. “FCMAT’s report is another opportunity to reiterate this request.”
Catholic Situation
California’s 12 archdioceses and dioceses are also struggling with the negative financial impact of the deluge of claims filed during A.B. 218’s three-year window.
In November, the Diocese of Oakland announced it would pay up to $200 million to settle approximately 345 claims. The diocese had previously filed for bankruptcy protection in May 2023, due to the lawsuits.
A month earlier in October, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles announced an even larger $880-million settlement of 1,353 claims filed during the A.B. 218 window, following a one-year mediation process overseen by retired California Judge Daniel Buckley.
Along with the Diocese of Oakland, the Archdiocese of San Francisco and the Dioceses of Santa Rosa, Sacramento and San Diego have filed for bankruptcy as a direct consequence of A.B. 218. Additionally, the Diocese of Fresno is planning to file for bankruptcy, and the Diocese of Monterey is considering doing so.
But while Church leaders objected strenuously before and during the A.B. 218 process that the inclusion of Catholic institutions was fundamentally unfair in light of their earlier actions to compensate the victims of historical sexual abuse, in its wake they have prioritized the plight of victims.
“I am sorry for every one of these incidents, from the bottom of my heart,” Archbishop José Gomez of Los Angeles said in a letter he released at the time of the October 2024 sexual-abuse settlements. “My hope is that this settlement will provide some measure of healing for what these men and women have suffered.”
Said the archbishop, “Through a process of active mediation, I believe we have come to a resolution of these claims that will provide just compensation to the survivor-victims while also allowing the Archdiocese to continue to carry out our ministries to the faithful and our social programs serving the poor and vulnerable in our communities.”