Maryland Juvenile Detention Center Lawsuit: 2025 Caps and Case Status

The Maryland juvenile detention center lawsuits are a wave of civil claims — more than 10,000 as of late 2025 — brought by people who say they were sexually abused as children while held in state-run youth facilities. The claims were made possible by the Maryland Child Victims Act of 2023, which erased the deadline for filing childhood sexual abuse suits and revived claims that had already expired. Estimates of the total number of claims run as high as 12,000, and the state’s potential exposure has been projected in the billions.¹²

The Law That Opened the Courthouse Doors

The Child Victims Act took effect October 1, 2023. It eliminated all statutes of limitations and statutes of repose for civil claims arising from childhood sexual abuse, and it retroactively revived claims that had already expired under prior law. For revived claims, the law originally set noneconomic damages caps at $1.5 million per claimant against private institutions and $890,000 per occurrence against the state or local government entities.³

Two other pieces of the law matter for people suing the state. The Act partially waived sovereign immunity for the state and local governments in sexual abuse cases, and it exempted these claims from the procedural requirements of the Maryland Tort Claims Act, including the usual notice requirement.⁴ Survivors can go straight to court without first filing notice with the state treasurer, a step that had blocked many earlier claims.

In February 2025, the Maryland Supreme Court upheld the Act in a 4-3 decision, rejecting arguments that reviving expired claims violated vested property rights.⁵

What the Lawsuits Allege

The abuse described in the complaints reaches back to the 1960s and continues into the late 2010s. Plaintiffs name guards, counselors, teachers, supervisors, and other staff at at least 15 facilities.⁶ The complaints describe staff entering children’s cells at night to rape them, sometimes in groups. Children were allegedly bribed with snacks, cigarettes, and outdoor time to keep quiet. Those who reported abuse faced retaliation: threats of violence, solitary confinement, and unfavorable behavior reports that could extend their incarceration.⁷ The lawsuits assert that the Maryland Department of Juvenile Services knew and failed to act.

Facilities Named

Charles H. Hickey Jr. School in Baltimore County, where more than 500 people have alleged abuse, with reported incidents as recent as 2019.⁸
Thomas J.S. Waxter Children’s Center in Laurel, the state’s primary detention facility for girls until it closed in 2022. Complaints describe systemic staff-on-inmate abuse over several decades, enabled by inadequate sightlines and what survivors call a culture of concealment.⁹
Cheltenham Youth Detention Center in Prince George’s County, subject of a 2010 U.S. Department of Justice investigation. Lawsuits allege abuse by staff and other inmates from 1969 to 2017, with some victims as young as seven.⁵
Baltimore City Juvenile Justice Center, named in multiple complaints alleging staff abuse.⁷
Victor Cullen Center in Sabillasville, where at least four lawsuits allege staff abuse of children aged 13 to 17.¹⁰
Backbone Mountain Youth Center in Garrett County, where a 2010 U.S. Department of Justice report found 36.4% of boys surveyed said they had been abused, the highest rate reported at any facility in the nation at that time.¹¹

One case has drawn particular attention. A civil suit filed under the Act accuses Ronald Neverdon, a former housing supervisor at the Hickey School, of sexually abusing at least 69 children over a career running roughly from the mid-1960s to the mid-1990s. The complaint alleges he isolated children as young as nine and told victims he would “make their lives miserable” and that “no one would believe them.”¹² Neverdon, 79, later faced 95 criminal counts in Baltimore County Circuit Court tied to 10 identified victims and has maintained his innocence through his attorney.¹³

The 2025 Amendments Cut the Caps

As claims mounted, the legislature grew alarmed at potential liability. Analysts projected in early 2025 that the state could face over $3.1 billion in exposure on the roughly 3,500 claims then on file, and warnings from some lawmakers about multi-incident recoveries ran as high as $60 billion.¹⁴¹⁵

The General Assembly passed House Bill 1378, which Governor Wes Moore signed on April 22, 2025. The law took effect June 1, 2025, and it changed three things that matter to anyone weighing a claim:

The cap on damages against government entities dropped from $890,000 to $400,000, and the cap against private institutions dropped from $1.5 million to $700,000.¹⁶
Damages caps now apply per claimant rather than per occurrence, so a plaintiff cannot recover separate awards for multiple acts of abuse.¹⁷
Attorney fees are capped at 20% of settlements and 25% of court judgments.¹⁷

The May 31, 2025 cutoff mattered enormously. Attorneys rushed to file thousands of cases before that date to preserve the higher, pre-amendment caps for their clients. Plaintiffs’ lawyers have signaled a constitutional challenge to HB 1378. D. Todd Mathews of Bailey & Glasser called the law “clearly unconstitutional,” and another plaintiffs’ attorney described a court challenge as “all but a certainty.”¹⁶ The elimination of the filing deadline itself has not changed; a claim can still be filed at any age. The reduced caps and the per-claimant rule are what apply to anyone filing on or after June 1, 2025.

Where the Cases Stand

Filings arrived almost immediately. More than 100 victims had sued by mid-December 2023, over 200 by early 2024, more than 1,400 by spring 2025, and more than 10,000 by late 2025.⁷¹ A coalition of nearly two dozen firms collectively represents more than 4,500 plaintiffs, and Levy Konigsberg alone represents over 1,000 survivors with filings approaching 2,000.¹⁶⁶

No settlements had been paid as of late 2025, and plaintiffs’ attorneys say meaningful settlement negotiations have not begun.¹ Maryland retained Saul Ewing LLP in January 2025 as settlement resolution counsel, tasked with building a “settlement matrix” to allocate compensation based on the severity, duration, and impact of the abuse.⁵ No money has been set aside. Senate President Bill Ferguson said doing so could influence negotiations and that eventual payouts would likely be “significantly below the maximum payout available.”¹⁵ Maryland was already facing a $1.4 billion budget deficit, and no funding mechanism for payouts has been established. Thomas Yost, an attorney for over 1,000 plaintiffs, said the state could not cover the costs in a single budget cycle.²

Cases in Baltimore City Circuit Court were in the discovery and pretrial motion phase as of December 2025. A state contractor is digitizing millions of DJS records, a project projected to take about a year. Legal analysts expect serious settlement talks to follow “bellwether” trials, where representative cases go before juries and set a benchmark value for the rest of the claims.¹

A Second Track in Federal Court

In June 2025, plaintiffs’ attorneys opened a second front by filing a federal civil rights lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland. The suit was brought on behalf of three survivors who were sexually abused as children, aged 14 and 15 at the time, at the Waxter Children’s Center and the Hickey School between 2019 and 2020. The federal complaint alleges that state officials, including former Secretaries of Juvenile Services and facility superintendents, knew abuse was widespread and created policies that enabled it, depriving plaintiffs of their constitutional rights. Attorneys described the federal filing as a way to bypass the state-level restrictions imposed by HB 1378.¹⁸¹⁹

If You Are Considering a Claim

There is no filing deadline for a civil suit alleging childhood sexual abuse at a Maryland juvenile facility; the Child Victims Act removed the statute of limitations, and the 2025 amendments left that piece intact. What did change is the money. A claim filed on or after June 1, 2025 against the state is capped at $400,000, applied per claimant regardless of how many separate incidents of abuse occurred. Attorney fees on any recovery are capped at 20% for settlements and 25% for judgments. No settlements have been paid, and the state has said none will be paid quickly. The path most survivors are on runs through discovery, bellwether trials, and any eventual constitutional ruling on the 2025 amendments.

1
The Daily Record. Maryland DJS Child Abuse Lawsuits
2
The Banner. Maryland Child Abuse Lawsuit Payouts
3
Maryland General Assembly. Child Victims Act of 2023, Senate Bill 686
4
Miller & Zois. Maryland Tort Claims Act
5
Miller & Zois. Cheltenham Youth Detention Center Sex Abuse Lawsuits
6
Levy Konigsberg. 63 Men and Women File Maryland Juvenile Detention Lawsuit
7
FOX 5 DC. Victims Allege Sex Abuse in Maryland Youth Detention Facilities Under New Law Allowing Them to Sue
8
Maryland Matters. Thousands Are Suing States Over Sexual Abuse in Juvenile Detention Facilities
9
Levy Konigsberg. Thomas J.S. Waxter Children’s Center Sexual Abuse
10
Victims Civil Attorneys. Lawsuits Name the Victor Cullen Center in MD
11
CNS Maryland. Head of Juvenile Services Says Monitoring Reports Flawed and Exaggerated
12
PR Newswire. Housing Supervisor Accused of Abusing Nearly 70 Children at Charles H. Hickey Jr. School
13
The Banner. Charles Hickey Jr. School Sex Abuse Indictment, Ronald Neverdon
14
Maryland Matters. Legislators Warned of Enormous Liability Related to Sex Abuse Lawsuits
15
Rhode Island Legislature. American Tort Reform Association Testimony
16
Maryland Matters. Court Likely Next Stop as Overhaul of Child Victims Act Is Signed Into Law
17
Our Sunday Visitor. Maryland House Approves Bill Limiting Payments to Victims of Child Sexual Abuse
18
Bailey Glasser. BG Files Federal Suit in MD Juvenile Detention Sex Abuse
19
Levy Konigsberg. Three Survivors Alleging Sexual Abuse at Maryland Juvenile Detention Centers