There’s a major expense on the horizon that legislative leaders aren’t addressing as the budget works through the State House: potentially enormous legal payouts to people sexually abused as children in Maryland’s juvenile justice system.

The state is facing about 12,000 claims filed since lawmakers lifted the statute of limitations on child sexual abuse lawsuits with the Child Victims Act of 2023, enabling thousands of adult survivors to sue the people who abused them and institutions that shielded abusers.

Each of those claims could cost the state up to $890,000 — possibly more, depending on how the courts interpret recent changes to the law. Although many of the claims likely wouldn’t win the full amount, the state could wind up owing billions of dollars.

The claims brought by survivors in Maryland are staggering. They allege decades of violent sexual abuse against vulnerable children held in juvenile detention, sometimes for minor offenses. Some children were abused many times by different staff members or at different juvenile facilities.

“The problem of sexual abuse of minors in jails has occurred for decades,” said Thomas Yost, a Baltimore attorney whose firm is representing more than 1,000 plaintiffs. “You’re not going to be able to pay for it in one budget.”

Lawmakers have not articulated a plan for covering the cost. This year’s budget proposal overcomes a $1.4 billion shortfall without raising taxes or fees, but it offers no strategy for settling or paying thousands of Child Victims Act claims. The Senate has passed its spending plan, and the House is expected to approve its own next week.

The potential bill for abuse lawsuits adds to the long-term financial issues Maryland is facing. The Department of Legislative Services projects the state’s budget shortfall to grow to $2.3 billion next year, $3 billion the year after and $4 billion in the budget year beginning July 2030.

Senate President Bill Ferguson said it’s too early to estimate the total impact that Child Victims Act lawsuits will have on the budget but that Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown is sensitive to the need to compensate survivors while protecting the state’s coffers.

“I am confident the attorney general knows the constraints of the state budget,” Ferguson, a Baltimore Democrat, said.

It’s not as simple as multiplying the maximum award amount by the number of claims, Ferguson said, because there is a wide range of claims that vary in severity. It’s difficult to project how much the state will owe, he said.

The Attorney General’s Office declined to comment for this story.

Ferguson said lawmakers passed the Child Victims Act because they understood the horrific abuse that survivors suffered over decades.

“I think we all recognize that pain and want to be judicious and thoughtful in a way that, any commitments we make, we can follow through with,” he said.

Del. Ben Barnes, the chair of the House Appropriations Committee, said it’s his understanding the legislature won’t have to address the issue in the coming fiscal year.

“It’s out there. We’re well aware of it,” the Anne Arundel and Prince George’s Democrat said. “We understand we’re going to have to deal with it in the years to come.”

The Child Victims Act passed after years of hard-fought battles by survivors, including many who wanted to bring claims against the Archdiocese of Baltimore after a scathing Attorney General’s report identified decades of abuse and cover-ups.

The Archdiocese filed for bankruptcy days before the law took effect, avoiding a cascade of lawsuits. The state of Maryland didn’t have that option, and it soon became clear thousands of people would sue over abuse they said they experienced in state-run juvenile detention centers.

Lawmakers attempted a fix last year but may have made the problem worse.

In an effort to limit the state’s liability, the legislature cut the amount that survivors could win in court by more than half. For lawsuits against private institutions, the cap dropped from $1.5 million to $700,000 for claims filed after June 1, 2025; for claims against public institutions, such as the state, the cap dropped from $890,000 to $400,000.

The change brought forth thousands of new claims as survivors rushed to the courthouse to file before the deadline. The new law also capped the total amount that plaintiffs’ lawyers could receive at 20% of a settlement or 25% of the amount awarded at a jury trial.

It also tried to rectify another problem for the state. The original Child Victims Act said survivors could receive up to the monetary cap for an “an incident or occurrence” of sexual abuse. Some survivors were sexually abused dozens or hundreds of times, which their lawyers argued entitled them to the monetary cap many times over.

The updated version of the law clarified that the cap applied per claim, not per incident of abuse. But there’s disagreement about whether that update applied only to claims filed after June 1, 2025, or to all claims filed since the law was passed, Yost said.

That dispute represents potentially billions of dollars in additional liability for the state and may get resolved in court.

With the changes last year, Maryland joined other places grappling with enormous payments to sexual abuse survivors. Los Angeles County last year agreed to pay $4 billion to settle more than 6,800 abuse claims dating back decades in its juvenile detention and foster care systems.

There could be more adjustments this year. Sen. Will Smith, the chair of the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee, has proposed legislation that would repeal last year’s cap on attorneys fees. These cases take extensive time and resources, Smith told his committee at a bill hearing this month.

“If attorneys cannot be compensated for that time and expertise, they won’t take the cases,” said Smith, a Montgomery County Democrat and an attorney.

Banner reporter Pamela Wood contributed to this article.