In Latest Motion filed in MD Sexual Abuse Cases, Anapol Weiss and Co-Counsel Step in to Stop the State From Dismissing the Claims of Plaintiffs Victimized in Fredrick County
When the State government of Maryland sought to deny our clients the chance to seek justice for childhood sexual abuse suffered in a state-run juvenile detention center by filing a motion to dismiss his case, we had to take a stand through further legal filings of our own.
Thousands of Child Sexual Abuse Claims Against the State of Maryland
When the Maryland General Assembly passed The Child Victims Act in 2023, it opened the doors for now-adult victims of childhood sexual abuse occurring in all sorts of institutions, public and private, to pursue justice for claims that had previously been barred under strict statutes of limitations. Even Maryland’s own Governor, upon signing the law, proclaimed, “There is no statute of limitations on the pain these victims continue to feel. There is no statute of limitations on the hurt that endures for decades.”
What happened next was, it seemed, something state lawmakers hadn’t expected: a surge of sexual abuse claims against the state itself. Among the survivors of abuse who have since come forward are more than 4,000 individuals who alleged that their abuse occurred in state-run juvenile detention centers at the hands of government employees and services that the state contracted with.
The State’s Efforts to Silence Eight Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse Through Attempts to Dismiss the Case
Although the passage of The Child Victims Act in 2023 was heavily influenced by scandals involving private institutions, such as the Catholic Church, the law as passed extends the same rights to survivors in cases against government entities as those against religious organizations and other private institutions. However, now that the state has found itself facing thousands of lawsuits, it has attempted through various means to wriggle out of accountability.
Proposed legislative changes that would cap payouts and force claims into arbitration instead of a trial are under consideration by Maryland lawmakers under House Bill 1378—but that’s not all. In one specific case, the state has sought to get the claim dismissed entirely.
Filed in the Circuit Court of Maryland for Frederick County, case number C-10-CV-23-000645 is the legal action under which eight plaintiffs are seeking to hold the State of Maryland accountable for abuse and mistreatment occurring at the Victor Cullen Center in Sabillasville, MD. On March 14, 2025, the State of Maryland filed with the court a Motion to Dismiss the case. According to the Motion, the State based this attempt to avoid liability on such invalid arguments as delegation of the duty it owed to children and a supposed lack of details in allegations of abuse.
Although the State did delegate the operation of the Victor Cullen Center for a portion of the relevant time period to subcontractor Youth Services International (YSI), the assertion that the decision to pay a private company to operate the facility somehow eliminated the State’s duty to protect the children in its custody from sexual assault is both legally incorrect and morally appalling. The State was negligent in its initial hiring, training, retention, supervision, and education of the subcontractor staff, who are alleged to have perpetrated the abuse against plaintiffs who ranged in age from 13 to 17 years old, and as a result, the State can and should be held accountable.
The State has also attempted to paint the plaintiffs’ allegations as lacking in details, a puzzling and ironic move. First of all, these brave survivors have willingly provided full notice of the claim in accordance with the law. Secondly, it is the State’s refusal to answer discovery requests that are behind many of the details that the State claims are lacking in the plaintiff’s allegations. The claims do, in fact, provide the horrific details of specific instances of abuse that not only establish these occurrences but also reveal decades-long patterns of neglect and indifference within the facility.
Opposing Dismissal With All Our Resources
If the State of Maryland had hoped we and our co-counsel at other firms would simply give up the fight on behalf of these survivors of child sexual abuse, that’s not going to happen. We’re devoted to our clients’ causes and to securing them justice.
With co-counsel, we filed a formal Opposition to Defendant’s Motion to Dismiss with the Fredrick County Court on March 31, 2025. In this filing, we strategically dissected the State’s arguments and detailed exactly how these attempts to secure legal immunity are invalid on numerous grounds.
Ultimately, the State had a duty to protect the children in its custody, and the responsibility for the horrific abuse these survivors suffered in a government-run detention center is the State’s alone to bear. Arguing that the state delegated this responsibility by hiring someone else to operate its juvenile detention centers is not a good enough excuse to escape accountability. The State needs to be responsible for the people it hires and their unacceptable behavior, particularly when this negligence enabled decades of abuse.
The case in question is only one of numerous cases in which the Anapol Weiss team, with co-counsel, is fighting for survivors of sexual assault in Maryland. We recognize that it’s particularly important to take a stand in situations in which the state government’s negligence played a key role in enabling sexual abuse, often facilitating longstanding patterns of abuse, trauma, and institutional cover-ups.
Motions to dismiss claims or compel arbitration may be setbacks, but our clients don’t have to face these challenges alone. We’re ready to assess every detail of such legal filings, pick apart invalid and legally incorrect arguments, and fight back with filings of our own. We know how important it is that survivors of institutional childhood sexual abuse have the chance to seek justice, accountability, and compensation. Even the State shouldn’t be above the law, and we’re committed to preventing government defendants from escaping liability through questionable legal arguments.
