In its amicus curiae filing last week, the New Jersey State Bar Association urged the Appellate Division to affirm a trial court’s decision to apply recent amendments to the Child Sexual Assault Act (CSAA) in a broad manner to ensure claims of child sexual abuse could proceed on their merits subject to the newly enacted standards.
The appeal by Warren Hills Board of Education and Warren Hills Junior High School challenged the ruling of the trial court alleging that the Tort Claims Act (TCA) notice waiver under the CSAA did not extend to common law actions, and that certain pre-amendment language in the CSAA should apply to limit those individuals against whom child sexual abuse claims could be brought. NJSBA Secretary Craig J. Hubert and Trustee Thomas J. Manzo wrote the brief on behalf of the NJSBA.
“In the face of the obvious and unambiguous intent to pass a statute that opens the door for all survivors of sexual assault and abuse to bring claims for civil redress against both private and public entities, the matter before the Court asks: Was there any legislative intent to deny a class of victims, such as plaintiff, the right to proceed in their claim based upon prior tort claim notice requirements or based upon the pre-amendment language of the CSAA?” the NJSBA asked in its briefing.
The NJSBA said W.S. v. Hildreth, 252 N.J. 506 (2023) made the answer clear when the Supreme Court held that “such a denial would be irreconcilable with the language of the relevant statues and their legislative history, and would result in unsubstantiated denials of access to civil justice for sexual assault victims…”
The trial court affirmed a previous denial of summary judgment following a hearing on a Motion for Reconsideration to allow a claim under the CSAA to proceed in the matter of J.H. v. Warren Hills Board of Education, et als. The defendants argued that a footnote in W.S. left open an invitation for Title 59 defendants to seek clarity as to whether the TCA notice waiver extends to common law claims involving sexual assault.
But the court declined to interpret this language as narrowing the class of plaintiffs permitted to file a lawsuit, citing to the language in the CSAA that explicitly permits incidental common law claims related to the sexual assault. The trial court also cited to the Supreme Court’s reasoning in W.S. to apply the new CSAA language to all claims filed after the amendments to the Act.
“The ‘incidental’ common law claims here are negligent hiring, supervision and retention,” the trial court said in its decision on the motion for reconsideration. “While these claims are not actions directly resulting from the commission of sexual crimes as defined by statute, the basis of these claims is the underlying sexual assault claim… Given the Supreme Court’s expansive reading of the statute, the negligence claims need not be dismissed for failure to file a notice of claim.”
In applying the amendatory statutory language prospectively, the trial court also noted, “The purpose of this amendment was to allow victims of sexual abuse to pursue justice where they previously could not.”
The NJSBA appeared as amicus in W.S. and echoed its position on the issue of the expansive reading of the CSAA in this case. Oral argument has not yet been scheduled in this matter.