Abused at a Maryland Public School? A New Ruling Sets a Hard 1971 Cutoff for Suing the School Board
When Maryland passed the Child Victims Act in 2023, it did something almost no state had done so completely: it removed every deadline for suing over childhood sexual abuse. Survivors who had been told for decades that they were too late were suddenly told they could file. For many people, that was the first realistic path to holding an institution responsible.
On June 23, 2026, the Supreme Court of Maryland drew a line through part of that promise. In Board of Education for Wicomico County v. Sturm, the Court held that a Maryland county school board keeps complete sovereign immunity for abuse that happened before July 1, 1971. Removing the filing deadline did not, by itself, make the school board suable for conduct that old.
This matters far beyond one case. It tells every survivor of abuse in a Maryland public school exactly where the wall is, and it points to who can still be held accountable.
What the Court actually decided
The plaintiff alleged that a teacher at a Wicomico County elementary school sexually abused her while she was a student between 1967 and 1971, and that the school system ignored repeated reports about him. She filed suit in 2025, which the Child Victims Act allowed her to do no matter how much time had passed.
The Board asked the court to dismiss the case, arguing it was completely immune from tort suits going that far back. The Supreme Court of Maryland agreed and ordered the complaint dismissed.
The reasoning turns on a rule that surprises most people: in Maryland, county boards of education are treated as State agencies, and the State cannot be sued unless the General Assembly says so. A waiver of that immunity takes two things, not one. The legislature must authorize the suit, and it must also supply the money to pay the judgment, either by appropriating funds or by giving the agency a way to raise them.
That second requirement is where the claim failed. The Court assumed, without deciding, that the Child Victims Act did authorize these suits retroactively. It still found no waiver, because the General Assembly has never funded judgments for conduct that old.
Why July 1, 1971 is the dividing line
Maryland school boards have only ever had one mechanism for paying tort judgments: liability insurance that the General Assembly requires them to buy. The legislature first imposed that requirement effective July 1, 1971, with coverage of up to $100,000 per injury. That minimum was raised to $400,000 per occurrence in 2016, and the Child Victims Act raised it again to $890,000 per occurrence for child sexual abuse claims.
Before July 1, 1971, there was no such insurance and no other fund a board could reach. School operating money is constitutionally restricted to educational purposes, and the Court held that a board cannot simply move money between budget categories to pay a tort judgment. With no money the legislature made available, there was no effective waiver of immunity, and so no suit.
The Court dismissed the case without prejudice rather than permanently, specifically so the claim could be revived if the General Assembly ever appropriates money for claims like this one. That is a genuine possibility, and it is worth watching, but it has not happened yet.
What this means if you were abused at a Maryland public school
A few practical points follow directly from the ruling.
Abuse on or after July 1, 1971 is not affected. If the conduct happened once the insurance requirement was in place, the board's immunity has been partially waived and a claim can proceed, subject to the caps described below. Sturm draws a date line, not a doorway that closed on everyone.
There is still no filing deadline. Section 5-117(b) of the Courts and Judicial Proceedings Article says an action for childhood sexual abuse may be filed at any time, notwithstanding any statute of limitations, statute of repose, the Maryland Tort Claims Act, or the Local Government Tort Claims Act. You can read the statute here. Sturm did not change that. It addressed immunity, which is a separate question from timing.
The school board is rarely the only possible defendant. Sovereign immunity protects the government entity. It does not protect a private school, a church, a camp, a youth organization, or an individual abuser. Where the abuse happened at a private institution, none of the analysis in Sturm applies at all.
One more limit deserves attention. Section 5-117(d) bars a revived claim, meaning one that was already time-barred before October 1, 2023, if the victim has died before the case is filed. For families weighing whether to come forward, that provision can be decisive.
The damages caps, and the June 1, 2025 change
Maryland cut its Child Victims Act damages caps in 2025, and the date you file now controls what your case can be worth.
For claims that had already expired under the old law, Section 5-117(c) caps noneconomic damages against a single defendant at $1.5 million for actions filed on or before May 31, 2025, and at $700,000 for actions filed on or after June 1, 2025.
When the defendant is a county school board, Section 5-518 sets the ceiling instead. Liability for childhood sexual abuse claims may not exceed $890,000 per claimant. For an action filed on or after June 1, 2025 that would have been time-barred before October 1, 2023, that ceiling drops to $400,000. Maryland law also limits attorney fees in these cases: for actions filed on or after June 1, 2025, fees may not exceed 20 percent of a settlement or 25 percent of a judgment.
We wrote about that rollback and its June 1 cutoff in more detail in our post on the Child Victims Act cap change.
How Maryland, D.C. and Virginia compare
Survivors in this region often were abused in one jurisdiction and live in another. The rules are not close to identical.
| Childhood sexual abuse claim | Maryland | District of Columbia | Virginia |
|---|---|---|---|
| Deadline to file | None. The action may be filed at any time, notwithstanding any statute of limitations or statute of repose (Md. Cts. & Jud. Proc. § 5-117(b)) | Abuse before age 35: until the victim turns 40, or 5 years from when the victim knew or reasonably should have known of an act constituting sexual abuse, whichever is later (D.C. Code § 12-301(a)(11)) | 20 years after the cause of action accrues (Va. Code § 8.01-243(D)) |
| When the clock starts | Not applicable. No limitation period applies | The victim's 40th birthday, or discovery of an act constituting sexual abuse | The later of turning 18, a licensed physician or psychologist first communicating the injury and its connection to the abuse, or the discovery of corroborative evidence (Va. Code § 8.01-249(6)) |
| Claims already time-barred under older law | Revived. The Child Victims Act reaches claims barred before October 1, 2023, but not if the victim has died before the action is filed (§ 5-117(b), (d)) | No general revival provision appears in § 12-301 | No revival provision. The 20 year rule governs |
| Extra hurdle when the defendant is a public body | County school boards are State agencies. Immunity is waived only through the liability insurance the legislature requires, first mandated July 1, 1971. Recovery is capped at $890,000 per claimant, or $400,000 for a revived claim filed on or after June 1, 2025 (§ 5-518) | A claim against the District requires written notice to the Mayor within 6 months of the injury, and only two categories of claims are excepted (D.C. Code § 12-309) | For a claim against an institution that depends on the corroborative evidence trigger, only causes of action occurring on or after July 1, 2026 qualify (Va. Code § 8.01-249(6)) |
Maryland is the most open of the three on timing and the most complicated on defendants. The District has a long window but keeps a short and easily missed notice requirement for claims against the city itself. Virginia runs on a 20 year clock whose starting point can shift depending on when the injury was medically connected to the abuse.
If you are considering a claim
Coming forward is hard, and the legal rules above are not the part that should be on your shoulders. What matters most in these cases is usually simple to state: where the abuse happened, when it happened, and who else knew. Those three facts determine almost everything else.
If you or someone in your family was sexually abused as a child in Maryland, the District of Columbia, or Virginia, Posey Lebowitz PLLC will talk with you confidentially and at no cost. Call us at (202) 524-0123 or reach us through our contact page.
We have also written about how Maryland's filing clock works for people injured as children in state custody, which addresses a related but separate set of deadlines.
This article is general information, not legal advice about your case.
