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 the statute of limitations for childhood sexual abuse claims to age 40, or five years from the date the survivor discovered the psychological injury, whichever is later

Opened a three-year revival window that allowed previously time-barred claims — including those decades old — to be filed for the first time

Eliminated the government claims act filing requirement for childhood sexual abuse claims against public entities, removing a procedural shield that had historically protected government agencies from many late-filed suits

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 now 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. Regardless of how that legislative effort unfolds, the liability exposure already on the books is not going away.
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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, for example, 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, including the California Institution for Women in Chino, the Central California Women's Facility in Chowchilla, and Folsom Women's Facility. 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 of claims: 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 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 that is 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.

Final Thought: The Revival Window Is Closed, But the Claims Are Not

AB 218's three-year revival window closed in December 2022. But the lawsuits filed during that window — and the ongoing flow of timely claims from survivors who are 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.

Erike Young, MPPA, CPCU, CSP, ARM-E, ACRM is the founder of the Risk Management Study Group and a former Chair of the U.S. Technical Advisory Group for ISO 31000 – Risk Management. His experience advising on risk management frameworks at the international standards level informs the practical, real-world perspective he brings to every course and every edition of The One Minute Risk Manager. The RM Study Group offers affordable ARM™, CPCU®, ACRM, and AIC® exam prep courses starting at $99. Subscribe to The One Minute Risk Manager and never miss an issue.



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