ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — Gov. Wes Moore signed legislation on Tuesday to end Maryland's statute of limitations for when civil lawsuits for child sexual abuse can be filed against institutions.
The bill signing comes less than a week after the state's attorney general released a report that documented the scope of abuse spanning 80 years and accused church leaders of decades of coverups.
Under current law, people in Maryland who say they were sexually abused as children can’t sue after they reach the age of 38.
“There is no statute of limitations on the hurt that endures for decades after someone is assaulted," Moore, a Democrat, said. "There is no statute of limitations on the trauma that harms so many still to this day, and this law reflects that exact truth.”
The Maryland General Assembly passed the bill last week, hours after Attorney General Anthony Brown released a long-awaited report of nearly 500 pages with details about more than 150 Catholic priests and others associated with the Archdiocese of Baltimore abusing over 600 children.
State investigators began their work in 2019. They reviewed over 100,000 pages of documents dating back to the 1940s and interviewed hundreds of victims and witnesses.
The measure to end the statute of limitations has been sponsored for several years in Maryland by Del. C.T. Wilson, a Democrat who has testified about being abused in his youth.
“I thank all the survivors that came up year after year and told their stories," Wilson said.
David Lorenz, the Maryland leader of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests who attended the ceremony, said he was “thrilled for my fellow survivors.”
“Maryland has stopped saying: ‘Church, tell us what to do,' and said: ‘People, what do we do?’ We’re not beholden to the church anymore, and we should never have been,” Lorenz said.
Twenty-four states have approved revival periods known as “lookback windows,” which are limited time frames during which accusers can sue, regardless of how long ago the alleged abuse occurred. Maryland's law creates a permanent window with no time limit.
Marci Hamilton, the founder and CEO of Child USA, a think tank that advocates for better laws to protect children, said she testified to change the law in Maryland 20 years ago.
“This has been an extremely long haul," Hamilton said, crediting Wilson and victims for persevering. "It was a heavy lift, but they did it.”
The Maryland law, which takes effect Oct. 1, is the only one in the nation that includes some caps for damages, Hamilton said.
For private entities, under the bill, damages are capped at $1.5 million for non-economic damages like pain and suffering, but there isn’t a cap for damages relating to costs for services like therapy. For public entities like school boards and local governments, damages are capped at $890,000.
“This is the first window ever to have caps," Hamilton said. "We’ve resisted them, but these caps are fair enough.”
The Maryland Catholic Conference, which represents the three dioceses serving Maryland, contended in testimony that the bill is unconstitutional, because of the disparity in monetary judgements.
“The concerns we raised during the legislative session remain, including questions about constitutionality and the disparate treatment between public and private organizations in Maryland,” the conference said in a statement Tuesday.
The Baltimore archdiocese says it has paid more than $13.2 million for care and compensation for 301 abuse victims since the 1980s, including $6.8 million toward 105 voluntary settlements.
In anticipation that the law will be challenged in court, the measure includes a provision that would put lawsuits on hold until the Supreme Court of Maryland can decide on the law’s constitutionality.
http://www.jewishtimes.com/scripts/edition.pl?stay=1&SubSectionID=48&ID=3241
Maryland — The whispering got louder in the summer of 2006. Rabbi Moshe Eisemann, 71, a beloved longtime Ner Israel Rabbinical College scholar, teacher and author, was associated with the words "alleged molester."
A Baltimore-area pulpit rabbi and Ner Israel colleague left Rabbi Eisemann off the invitation list to his daughter's wedding, because of the uncertainty of it all.
The blogs, the Internet sites, were teeming with allegations of molestations by many rabbis, including Rabbi Eisemann. There have never been any complaints or charges filed with the police against the rabbi.https://www.bishop-accountability.org/news2007/07_08/2007_08_31_Jacobs_NerIsrael.htm
There was a comment about Belsky Jr from Telz, submitted while Horav UOJ was away - on the Lipa Schmeltzer entry. It's based on information in an article from a newspaper that's already been tossed so it will be episs shver to reconstitute it.
ReplyDeleteArie Crown Hebrew Say School in Chicagoland is well known for straddling the charedi and mo world. Apparently, they are following in some of the worst paths of both groups - in their claims that there is nobody working there now who has any responsibility for at the very least their incompetence regarding deceased former Rebbe pedophile Shlomo Pomerantz. They’re claiming that everyone involved is conveniently dead while it seems like at least 2 people are alive and well. They’re having their annual fundraiser tonight and are boasting it’s sold out. Chicagoans apparently rather have a good time than hold the administration to account.
ReplyDeleteDoes UOJ know anything about this? Marc Shapiro wrote in 2019:
ReplyDeleteProf. Shnayer Leiman’s email published in Chaim Dalfin’s new book, Torah Vodaas and Lubavitch (Brooklyn, 2019), p. 203.
There was a rabbi who allegedly was killed by mobsters. I heard from reliable sources that he was beaten, rolled in the snow and left to die. (Perhaps the goal was to frighten him, not kill him.) He survived the ordeal, but died shortly thereafter from pneumonia. The rabbi was Rabbi Yaakov Eskolsky, famous author and Rabbi of the Bialystocker Shul on the Lower East Side. I’m not aware of any written account that mentions this.
Leiman also mentions that Rabbi Israel Tabak, the son-in-law of R. Eskolsky, in discussing his father-in-law’s death mentions nothing about any foul play. See Tabak, Three Worlds (Jerusalem, 1988), p. 156.
R. Eskolsky served as a rabbi in Scranton for a few years. See his biography here. I previously wrote a bit about him here. In Tabak’s book, p. 152, it mentions that R. Eskolsky celebrated Thanksgiving, and that at a Thanksgiving dinner Tabak attended, he “emphasized the significance of Thanksgiving Day for our people who came to the United States from Eastern Europe, and especially from Russia. Coming to America, the land of freedom and opportunity, was like emerging from darkness into light and certainly deserved to be marked by thanksgiving, both to G-d and to America that treated its citizens so well.” I believe that for any non-hasidic rabbi in America in the early part of the twentieth century, the notion that there was something religiously problematic with celebrating Thanksgiving would have been incomprehensible.
Shimon Steinmetz sent me this picture from the Forverts, Oct. 23, 1930. I find it fascinating that R. Eskolsky served as a justice on the “Jewish Arbitration Court.”
Actually, I was in contact with Dalfin, I could not verify that particular incident.
ReplyDeleteThere was a bad guy as a rebbe in YTV in the late 20's that the Zeide had to toss out of there.
RSFM --- hung an American flag out of his porch in Monsey on Memorial Day and July 4th.
ReplyDeleteUOJ - MOSHE EISEMANN OF BALTIMORE VIA YESHIVA OF PHILADELPHIA
ReplyDelete