Source: thedailyrecord.com 4/7/25
ANNAPOLIS — Maryland lawmakers passed a measure Saturday to try to limit future liabilities from claims of sexual abuse at state and private institutions after thousands of people unexpectedly came forward with allegations of abuse, many of them in youth detention centers, putting potentially billions of dollars at stake for the state.
The wave of cases targeting the state’s juvenile justice system resulted after Maryland eliminated the statute of limitations for child sexual abuse claims two years ago with the Catholic Church abuse scandal in mind.
The measure, which now goes to Gov. Wes Moore, reduces caps on settlements from $890,000 to $400,000 for cases filed after May 31 for state institutions and from $1.5 million to $700,000 for private institutions. It also changes the 2023 law to only allow each claimant to receive one payment, instead of being able to collect for each incident of abuse.
Amazing. No well too deep to screw over individual citizens, but suddenly big daddy government has to create shield laws for themselves.
Guess LA County should’ve done this too, eh?
What I read from this is that a person’s pain is worth less when it’s committed by the arm of the government. So true.
Maybe Maryland should put cameras in members of clergy offices, classrooms, gyms, and other places children gather.
How did they not see that there would be thousands of claims of abuse after announcing there would be large payouts to abuse victims? Especially since, consistent with the politics of the moment, claims are near certain to be taken at face value, with little to no investigation, and even then conducted specifically to support the claim rather than determine viability.
And what does anyone want to bet there are tort lawyers in Maryland scrubbing records to find individuals who were in these organizations over the years and are cramming their mailboxes with procedural information to make claims. And a significant number of those claims are certain to be false. But that doesn’t matter, as the bill was written and passed simply to pander and grandstand.
Personally, I think this is a perfect example of where legislators ought to pay out of their own pockets for their idiocy.