In Roman Catholic Archbishop of Washington v. Doe, (MD Sup. Ct., Feb. 3, 2025), the Maryland Supreme Court in a 4-3 decision upheld the retroactive elimination of the limitation period for bringing child sexual abuse suits. The majority said in part:
In 2017, the General Assembly enacted legislation that, among other things, established a new time restriction applicable to filing child sexual abuse claims. The new provision stated that “[i]n no event” may a civil action for child sexual abuse be filed against a defendant not alleged to have been the perpetrator of the abuse “more than 20 years after the date on which the victim reaches the age of majority.”...
In 2023, the General Assembly enacted the Child Victims Act of 2023. That law eliminated all time restrictions applicable to child sexual abuse claims, including the new provision that had been added in 2017....
We hold that the relevant provision of the 2017 law created a statute of limitations and that the running of a statute of limitations does not establish a vested right to be free from liability from the underlying cause of action. We further hold that it was within the power of the General Assembly to retroactively abrogate that statute of limitations. The Child Victims Act of 2023 is therefore constitutional as applied to the defendants in the three cases before us.
Justice Biran, joined by Justices Eaves and McDonald, filed a dissenting opinion which said in part:
The text of the 2017 Act is unambiguous. In that legislation, the General Assembly created a statute of repose with respect to claims against non-perpetrator defendants. Thus, any claims against non-perpetrator defendants that were untimely on the effective date of the 2017 Act, or that became untimely before the effective date of the 2023 Act, could not be revived without violating the vested rights of the affected defendants. To the extent the General Assembly retroactively repealed the 2017 Act’s statute of repose by enacting the 2023 Act, it violated Article 24 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights and Article 3, Section 40 of the Maryland Constitution.
Justice McDonald also filed a dissenting opinion, joined by Justices Biran and Eaves.
