Child Victims Act Lawsuits: Settlements and How to File

Child Victims Act lawsuits are civil cases that adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse can bring under state laws that extend or temporarily suspend the statute of limitations for those claims. New York’s version, signed on February 14, 2019, has generated more than 10,800 cases against Catholic dioceses, public schools, foster care agencies, youth organizations, and individual abusers.¹ California, Maryland, Louisiana, and other states have passed similar laws, together producing tens of thousands of additional claims and billions of dollars in settlements.

What the Child Victims Act Changed

New York’s CVA, enacted as Senate Bill S2440, rewrote several deadlines at once. Survivors can now file civil suits until they turn 55. The criminal statute of limitations for felony sex offenses against children starts running when the victim turns 28, and for misdemeanors, when the victim turns 25.² The law also eliminated the notice-of-claim requirement that had blocked many suits against government entities, and it ordered the Office of Court Administration to train judges on crimes involving the sexual abuse of minors.³

The Lookback Window

The most consequential piece was a temporary lookback window that revived claims already barred by the old deadline. It opened in August 2019 for one year and was extended through early 2021 because of COVID-19 court closures.² By the time it closed, 10,857 cases had been filed.¹ Thousands remain unresolved; the volume and pandemic shutdowns created a backlog courts are still working through.⁴ The window has closed, so survivors who missed it generally cannot file revived claims; the age-55 extension still applies going forward.

Who Is Being Sued

Catholic Dioceses

Six of New York’s eight Catholic dioceses have filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy under the weight of CVA claims: Rochester, Buffalo, Rockville Centre, Albany, Syracuse, and Ogdensburg.⁵⁶⁷⁸

The two largest dioceses have tried to stay out of bankruptcy. The Archdiocese of New York, facing roughly 1,300 claims, proposed an $800 million settlement in 2026 that requires unanimous plaintiff consent by June 27, 2026. Each claimant would receive $250,000 or could go to arbitration for more. To fund it, the archdiocese sold most of its real estate, including its Manhattan office headquarters for $100 million.⁹ Archbishop Ronald Hicks said the alternative is bankruptcy.¹⁰ The Diocese of Brooklyn is pursuing a global mediated resolution of about 1,100 cases, having already paid more than $100 million to over 500 survivors through an earlier program.¹¹

Public Schools

School districts have been sued in large numbers, often over a single long-tenured employee. The Kenmore-Town of Tonawanda district settled 35 of 48 lawsuits for $17.5 million in June 2022, all tied to former teacher Arthur F. Werner. Niagara Falls City schools face 23 CVA suits; Buffalo Public Schools face 24.¹² On Long Island, at least 45 claims were filed against the Bay Shore Union Free School District over retired teacher Thomas Bernagozzi, who taught third grade from 1970 to 2000. Seventeen Bernagozzi-related claims had already settled for a combined $55 million.¹³

Foster Care Agencies

The Council of Family and Child Caring Agencies, which represents 70 nonprofit child welfare organizations, reported 812 CVA lawsuits filed against its members. One Riverhead group home, Timothy Hill Children’s Ranch, filed for bankruptcy after just four suits.¹⁴ Voluntary foster care agencies face about 900 CVA claims, and nearly half have no insurance coverage for the alleged incidents.¹⁵

The Boy Scouts of America

Though not a CVA case itself, the Boy Scouts bankruptcy runs parallel to the state-law revival efforts and shows how large institutions have resolved mass abuse claims. The organization filed for Chapter 11 in February 2020 with more than 82,000 abuse claims eventually filed. The reorganization plan, effective April 2023, created a roughly $2.4 billion settlement trust.¹⁶ Payouts have been slow. About $1.65 billion remains in escrow over a dispute about future claimants, and as of March 2026 approved claimants were eligible for 4.7 percent of their allowed claim amount, with a portion held back for potential government healthcare liens.¹⁷

What Settlements and Verdicts Look Like

Most CVA cases settle. Values vary with the severity and duration of the abuse, the strength of the evidence, and whether an institution covered up the wrongdoing. Older claims with limited documentation have typically resolved between $50,000 and $150,000; cases with verified institutional negligence have settled between $200,000 and $500,000; severe, long-term abuse cases with strong evidence have reached $1 million or more.¹⁸

Trial verdicts have gone much higher. In May 2023 an Erie County jury awarded $100 million against Joseph King, including $50 million in punitive damages, in a case involving a family friend who abused a girl starting at age 12.¹⁹ A federal jury in Brooklyn returned a record nine-figure CVA verdict in March 2024.²⁰ In October 2024, a jury in the Bay Shore Bernagozzi case awarded $25 million; the trial judge later set that aside and ordered a new trial on damages unless both sides agreed to cut the verdict to $4 million. The plaintiff’s attorney said he would appeal the reduction.¹³ A June 2026 Brooklyn verdict awarded $18 million against the City of New York, described as the first CVA jury verdict involving a city public school, over abuse by a music teacher in the early 1970s.

Where Cases Are Running Into Trouble

Defendants challenged the CVA’s lookback window as a due process violation, arguing that reviving time-barred claims unconstitutionally stripped them of a vested right. The Appellate Division’s Fourth Department rejected that argument in 2023, holding that the CVA was a “reasonable response to remedy an injustice” given the barriers survivors face in disclosing abuse.²¹

A different problem has hit cases against the state itself. In March 2025, the New York Court of Appeals unanimously ruled in Chi Bartram Wright v. State of New York that CVA claims filed against the state must meet the strict pleading requirements of the Court of Claims Act. The plaintiff’s claim, alleging abuse by “numerous men” between 1986 and 1990, was dismissed for failing to specify time and place in enough detail for the state to investigate.²² State attorneys have since used that ruling to seek dismissal of hundreds of CVA and Adult Survivors Act cases, particularly those alleging abuse in state prisons.²³ In September 2025, a Bronx judge dismissed more than 450 lawsuits against New York City over alleged abuse in juvenile detention centers.²⁴ The state Senate passed a bill to loosen the pleading standard; as of June 2026 the Assembly had not advanced it.

State supreme courts around the country are split on whether lookback windows are constitutional at all. Courts in Georgia, Vermont, North Carolina, Maryland, and Louisiana (on rehearing) have upheld them, finding that ordinary statutes of limitations do not create vested rights for defendants. Courts in Utah, Kentucky, Colorado, Maine, and New Hampshire have struck revival laws down under their state constitutions.²⁵

Similar Laws Outside New York

California (AB-218)

California’s Assembly Bill 218, effective January 1, 2020, extended the civil statute of limitations to age 40 or five years after the survivor discovers the connection between their injury and the abuse. It also opened a three-year lookback window that closed in January 2023.²⁶ Los Angeles County alone faces more than 14,000 cases. The county reached a $4 billion tentative settlement in April 2025 covering over 11,000 claimants and announced a second tentative deal of up to $828 million for more than 400 additional cases in October 2025, with roughly 2,500 cases still pending.²⁷ Lawmakers are weighing reforms that would raise the burden of proof for older claims, cap non-economic damages, and require proof the public entity had actual knowledge of the abuse.²⁸

Maryland

Maryland’s Child Victims Act of 2023 allows survivors to file “at any time,” with no statute of limitations. More than 12,305 claims have been filed against state government entities, with lawmakers estimating total taxpayer exposure as high as $60 billion.²⁹ More than 3,800 individuals filed suit in April and May 2025 alone, with nearly 1,300 cases filed in Baltimore City prompting a judge to pause all CVA proceedings there. In June 2025 the legislature cut the cap on non-economic damages against government entities from $890,000 to $400,000 per claimant.³⁰

Other States

More than 22 states, territories, and the federal government have eliminated civil statutes of limitations for at least some serious sex offenses.³¹ Louisiana extended its lookback window through June 2027 after the state supreme court upheld it on rehearing in June 2024.²⁵ Iowa signed a new law in May 2026 extending its civil statute of limitations for childhood sexual abuse and human trafficking survivors.³² Missouri was debating an extension as of April 2026, though the bill stalled over unrelated provisions.³³

How to File a Child Victims Act Lawsuit

A CVA case is a civil action, not a criminal prosecution. The survivor, through an attorney, files a complaint in civil court identifying the defendants, which can include both the person who committed the abuse and any institution that employed, supervised, or enabled that person. The complaint must describe what happened and the injuries the survivor suffered.³⁴ Under New York’s CVA, a notice of claim is no longer required before suing a government entity.³ Pleading standards still matter: in New York, claims against the state itself must meet the detail requirements of the Court of Claims Act, or risk dismissal under the Chi Bartram Wright precedent.²²

After filing, the case moves into discovery, where both sides exchange documents, take depositions, and gather evidence. Many cases settle during or after this phase; those that don’t go to trial. Available damages include compensation for physical, emotional, and psychological harm, medical expenses, lost wages, pain and suffering, and in cases of egregious conduct, punitive damages. Legal fees typically run 30 to 40 percent of any recovery.

1
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2
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3
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9
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11
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13
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19
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