LA County paid out in AB 218 settlements, including a record $4B covering 11,000+ claimants
New statute of limitations for childhood sexual abuse claims — or 5 years from discovery of injury
Revival window that reopened ALL previously time-barred claims, including those decades old
In 2019, California enacted Assembly Bill 218 — a landmark piece of legislation that fundamentally rewrote the rules for childhood sexual abuse claims in the state. For survivors, it was long overdue justice. For California's public entities — school districts, counties, correctional institutions, and municipalities — it has become one of the most significant financial and risk management crises in modern public sector history.
If you manage risk for a public agency in California, or advise one, this article is essential reading.
What AB 218 Actually Did
Before AB 218, many childhood sexual abuse survivors were barred from bringing civil claims simply because the statute of limitations had expired — often long before victims fully understood the harm done to them or felt safe enough to come forward.
AB 218 changed three things that matter enormously to public entity risk managers:
Extended Statute of Limitations
Claims may now be filed until age 40, or five years from the date the survivor discovered the psychological injury — whichever is later.
Three-Year Revival Window
Previously time-barred claims — including those decades old — could be filed for the first time during the window, which closed December 2022.
Government Claims Act Eliminated
The procedural shield requiring claimants to file an administrative claim within six months was removed entirely for childhood sexual abuse claims.
Treble Damages for Concealment
AB 218 added a treble damages provision for entities that concealed abuse — turning institutional cover-up from a litigation strategy into a catastrophic liability multiplier.
That third change is the one most public entity risk managers underestimated. California's Government Claims Act had long required claimants to file an administrative claim within six months of an incident before suing a public entity. AB 218 removed that requirement entirely for childhood sexual abuse — meaning public agencies lost one of their most reliable procedural defenses overnight.
The Financial Scale: Billions and Counting
The numbers emerging from AB 218 litigation are staggering — and they are still growing.
Los Angeles County alone has already paid out nearly $5 billion in AB 218-related settlements, including a record $4 billion settlement covering more than 11,000 claimants related to abuse in schools, foster care, and juvenile facilities. A second settlement of $828 million followed, and thousands of additional cases remain pending in the court system.
Los Angeles County supervisors have gone to the state legislature seeking amendments to AB 218, arguing that the financial strain is threatening core public services and pushing local government toward fiscal instability.
Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, 2025
And Los Angeles is not alone. Public school districts across California are defending claims from the 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s — incidents that would have been completely time-barred under prior law. Courts are seeing a wave of lawsuits alleging that administrators received complaints about boundary violations or grooming behavior, failed to report or remove the employee, and allowed abuse to continue through institutional concealment.
Where Public Entities Are Most Exposed
Based on the current litigation landscape, the highest-risk areas for California public entities fall into five categories:
1. K-12 School Districts
School districts are the most active battleground. Dozens of lawsuits have been filed in early 2026 alone, many alleging systemic negligence spanning multiple decades. A recurring pattern: administrators who received warnings about employee misconduct but failed to report to law enforcement, relying instead on internal transfers, quiet terminations, or silence. LAUSD is defending claims alleging it misled investigators and used tenure protections to shield a predatory teacher from accountability.
2. County Juvenile Detention Facilities
Claims involving county-operated juvenile detention centers represent some of the largest individual settlements. The combination of a captive population, power imbalances, and documented histories of inadequate supervision has made these facilities particularly vulnerable to high-value verdicts.
3. State Correctional Institutions
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation is facing growing litigation from women's prison facilities. A former CDCR OB/GYN physician allegedly abused incarcerated women for seven years while prison officials ignored repeated complaints. These cases carry elevated damages potential because of the severe power imbalance, isolation, and inability of victims to escape or seek outside help.
4. Foster Care Systems
County-administered foster care programs are deeply exposed. Claims involving foster parents, group home operators, and medical professionals with foster care access — some spanning decades — are moving through the courts with increasing frequency.
5. Special Education Programs
A January 2026 federal lawsuit against the Rocklin Unified School District illustrates a growing category: sexual abuse of students with disabilities. Children with limited communication ability, cognitive impairments, or behavioral needs present unique supervision challenges — and when those challenges are not adequately addressed, the liability exposure is severe.
The revival window closed in December 2022 — but lawsuits filed during that window, plus timely claims from survivors still within the extended statute of limitations, will be working through California courts for years, perhaps decades, to come. This exposure is not going away.
The Insurance Implications
For public entity risk managers, AB 218 has exposed serious gaps in how Sexual Abuse and Molestation (SAM) liability was historically underwritten, reserved, and insured.
Occurrence-based policy language matters enormously. Many AB 218 claims involve abuse that occurred 20, 30, or even 40 years ago. Which policy — or which pool year — responds to a claim from 1988 filed in 2025? If your agency has changed insurance carriers, joined or left a Joint Powers Authority, or restructured its risk program over the decades, identifying the correct responding coverage can be extraordinarily complex.
Coverage gaps are common. Some older general liability policies excluded sexual abuse and molestation entirely. Others had sublimits that are now woefully inadequate given current verdict and settlement values. A sublimit of $1 million or $2 million that seemed reasonable in 1995 is not meaningful protection against an 11,000-claimant class action settlement.
Retroactive liability is not over. Even agencies that have since adopted robust safeguarding policies, mandatory reporting protocols, and abuse prevention training are not immune from historical claims. Good current practices do not extinguish past liability — they only reduce future exposure.
Reinsurance recoveries are being disputed. For Joint Powers Authorities and large self-insured public entities, the allocation of AB 218 losses across reinsurance layers and stop-loss agreements is generating significant disputes. The sheer volume and aggregate size of claims is testing reinsurance structures in ways that were never anticipated when those programs were designed.
What Risk Managers Should Do Now
- Conduct a full insurance archaeology review. Locate every occurrence-based policy your agency held dating back to the 1970s, including JPA pool coverage. Identify sublimits, SAM exclusions, and gaps. You cannot defend what you cannot find.
- Audit your current SAM coverage adequacy. Given current settlement values in the hundreds of millions, sublimits of $1M–$5M are not sufficient. Review your current SAM coverage limits and standalone policy options immediately.
- Inventory your highest-risk programs. Document all programs involving vulnerable populations — special education, juvenile facilities, foster care contracting — and assess supervision protocols, reporting structures, and historical complaint records.
- Implement mandatory third-party reporting protocols. Every complaint of boundary violations or grooming behavior must go to law enforcement, not internal HR. Document this policy and train every supervisor, administrator, and program manager.
- Review vendor and contractor agreements. Any third-party operator working with your agency's vulnerable populations should carry standalone SAM coverage with your entity named as additional insured. Audit existing contracts now.
- Engage specialized coverage counsel. AB 218 coverage disputes are technically complex. If you are managing significant claim exposure, you need attorneys with specific expertise in occurrence policy triggers, long-tail liability, and JPA reinsurance allocation.
The Bottom Line
AB 218's three-year revival window is closed. But the lawsuits filed during that window — and the ongoing flow of timely claims from survivors still within the extended statute of limitations — will be working their way through California courts for years, perhaps decades, to come.
The public entities that manage this crisis best will be the ones that treated it as what it is: not just a legal problem, but a fundamental risk management challenge requiring proactive insurance strategy, strong governance, and an unwavering commitment to the safety of the people in their care.
That is, after all, what public service is supposed to be about.
