(Editor’s Note: The latest edition of the Insurance Law Section Newsletter provides an overview of recent cases that impact the legal perspective on negligence in sports injuries, tort claims in sex abuse cases and more. Below is a summary of one of those cases written by Brian Lehrer. Read the full issue here, login required)
A case involving the Child Sexual Abuse Act (CSAA), the Charitable Immunity Act (CIA) and the Tort Claims Act (TCA), the state Supreme Court recently held that the plain meaning of the relevant statutes dictates that child sexual abuse survivors who file a CSAA
complaint against a public entity after Dec. 1, 2019 – even if their cause of action accrued much earlier – need not file a TCA Notice of Claim before filing suit.
The plaintiff, W.S., alleged that his teacher defendant, Dereck Hildreth, sexually assaulted him when W.S. was in sixth grade. The parties agreed that the plaintiff’s claim accrued in 2016.
In 2019, the state Legislature overhauled the CSAA, CIA and TCA for survivors of child sexual abuse to file claims at any time before reaching the age of 55 or seven years after discovering the harm – whichever is later. As an amendment to the TCA, the Legislature removed the requirement that the plaintiffs bringing CSAA complaints against public entities file a TCA Notice of Claim within 90 days of their claim accruing.
In January 2020, W.S. sued Hildreth and others alleging violations of various statutes. The public entity defendants moved to dismiss the complaint for failure to file a TCA Notice of Claim within 90 days, but the motion judge denied the motion. The Appellate Division affirmed and the Supreme Court upheld the Appellate Division’s decision.
The Court noted that under N.J.S.A. 59:8-3(b), that as of Dec. 1, 2019, there was no longer any precondition for a plaintiff alleging sexual abuse as a minor by a public employee or employer to file a Notice of Claim under the TCA before filing suit, regardless of when the cause of action accrued. The Court noted that when W.S. filed his complaint, the plain language of the statute New Jersey State Bar Association Insurance Law Section 4 provided that procedural requirements of the TCA did not apply and, therefore, upheld the Appellate Division.