“Is the retroactive elimination of time restrictions applicable to child sexual assault claims contained in the Child Victims Act of 2023 constitutional as applied to the defendants?”
This was the question presented to the Supreme Court of Maryland in its September 2024 session. In three separate cases, numerous adult plaintiffs filed claims of child sexual abuse that had been previously time barred before October 1, 2023. Nonetheless, due to the passage of the Child Victims Act of 2023, these plaintiffs filed child sexual abuse claims in state and federal courts in Maryland. The cases were: (1) Roman Catholic Archbishop of Washington v. John Doe, et al, Case No. C-16-CV-24-004497; (2) Board of Education of Harford County, et al. v. John Doe, Case No.: C-12-CV-23-000767; and (3) The Key School, Inc., et al. v. Valerie Bunker, Case No.: 1:23-cv-02662-MJM. The three cases were consolidated and brought before the Supreme Court of Maryland to answer the following certified question, “Does the Maryland Child Victims Act of 2023, 2023 Md. Laws Ch. 5 (S.B. 686) (codified at Md. Code Ann., Cts & Jud. Proc. § 5-117), constitute an impermissible abrogation of a vested right in violation of Article 24 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights and/or Article III, Section 40 of the Maryland Constitution?”
In order to determine whether or not the 2023 Child Victims Act (“2023 Act”) abrogated vested rights of the defendants in the three consolidated cases, the Court went through a multi-step analysis to determine whether two identical bills from 2017, 2017 Md. Laws, Chs. 12 & 656 (“2017 Act”), the Child Victims Act’s predecessor, retroactively abrogated vested rights. More specifically, the opinion focused on: (1) whether subsection (d) of § 5-117 of the Courts and Judicial Proceedings Article was a statute of limitations or a statute of repose; and (2) whether the running period of either type of statute established a vested right in a defendant to be from of liability from a cause of action.
Statutes of limitations and statutes of repose are two types of statutes that consist of time-based restrictions that can bar proceeding on a cause of action. While these statutes have some overlapping features that cause much confusion, they can also be distinguished very easily.
A statute of limitations is more of a remedial or procedural vehicle “designed to: (1) provide adequate time for diligent plaintiffs to file suit, (2) grant repose to defendants when plaintiffs have tarried for an unreasonable period of time, and (3) serve society by promoting judicial economy.” Pennwalt Corp. v. Nasios, 314 Md. 433, 437-38 (1988). While the word repose is used in describing the purpose of a statute of limitations, these types of statutes “do not create any substantive rights in a defendant to be free from liability.” Anderson v. United States, 427 Md. 99, 118 (2012). Statutes of limitations are understood to bar a plaintiff from a remedy for enforcing a right, rather than extinguishing the right itself. Park Plus, Inc. v. Palisades of Towson, LLC, 478 Md. 35, 54 (2022). These statutes are plaintiff-focused, triggered by the occurrence or discovery of an injury, and allow for tolling for minors to reach the majority age, 18, and for fraudulent concealment. Anderson, 427 Md. At 118.
A statute of repose achieves the same objectives as a statute of limitations but for a different purpose. These defendant-focused statues provide an absolute bar to a cause of action and provide immunity to a class of particularized defendants after a designated time period has passed. Id. These statutes are triggered by some unrelated “event, act, or omission” and are not subject to rolling. Id. at 118-119. Statutes of repose “create[] a substantive right [which] protects a defendant from liability.” Id. at 120.
The next question the Court had to analyze was whether either time restriction created a vested right to be free from liability upon the extinguishment of a certain period of time. To answer this question, the Court had to establish, first, what a vested right was. A vested right was defined to be one “so far perfected that it cannot be taken away by statute” and could be protected “from legislative interference.” Langston v. Riffe, 359 Md. 396, 419-20 (2000). Additionally, in reference to the certified question brought before the Court, it has been previously held that “the Constitution of Maryland prohibits legislation which retroactively abrogates vested rights.” Dua v. Comcast Cable of Maryland, Inc., 370 Md. 604, 623 (2002). In terms of a statute of limitations, the Court concluded that there was no such vested right to be abrogated upon a revival of a claim that is time-barred by an ordinary statute of limitations. However, when it came to statutes of repose, the Court found that the expiration of time in such a statute created a vested right in a defendant.
Ultimately, in this instant case, the Court found that the plain language of subsection (d) of § 5-117, as it was in 2017, was more akin to a statute of limitation rather than a statute of repose, and as such, did not grant the defendants in the three consolidated cases any vested right to be free from liability. The Court analyzed the purpose, operation, trigger, and uncodified features of subsection (d) to come to the foregoing conclusion. The Court also relied on the statutory and legislative history of the statute to determine the General Assembly’s intent for subsection (d) to be a statute of limitations. Therefore, the above-referenced certified question was answered in the negative.
While both Justice Biran and Justice McDonald wrote dissenting opinions regarding the Court’s majority decision in this matter, I do find the 2023 Child Victims Act to be an inspiring piece of legislation that not only prevents perpetrators and non-perpetrators from escaping liability, but it allows persons who were sexually abused as children to take the time they need in digesting what happened to them.
- Aaminah Woods, Associate
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