CALIFORNIA SCHOOL SEXUAL ABUSE LAWSUITS

Fighting for Survivors of Student Sexual Abuse in California Schools

California School Sexual Abuse Lawsuits involve claims that students were allegedly abused by school staff and institutions failed to prevent misconduct.

Levy Konigsberg is investigating claims that students in California school districts were allegedly sexually abused by teachers, coaches, and staff across the state.

California school sexual abuse allegations span districts throughout the state, including elementary schools, high schools, and specialized institutions. Reported cases involve teachers, counselors, coaches, and other personnel accused of misconduct such as grooming, inappropriate contact, sexual assault, and exploitation of students. Lawsuits allege that some school officials failed to act on complaints, ignored warning signs, or allowed individuals with prior allegations or known risks to remain in positions of authority, contributing to ongoing abuse and harm to students.

When authority figures at schools abuse their power and administrators ignore red flags for sexual abuse, it’s not just a child’s trust that’s broken—it’s their future. 

At Levy Konigsberg, we see and we fight for the individuals—the children and families—who have been failed by the institutions they trusted most.

If you or a loved one was harmed, contact us today.

Sex Abuse Scandals in California Schools

Examples of alleged abuse, and of conditions likely to lead to abuse within California schools, include the following:

Los Angeles Unified School District (Miramonte Elementary School and South East High School)

• In May 2026, the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) agreed to pay a settlement of more than $30 million to 19 former students of Miramonte Elementary School who were allegedly sexually harassed, abused, and molested by former teacher Mark Berndt. 

Lawsuits were filed, which brought the total paid by the district to victims of Berndt to over $200 million. 

In January 2024, the LAUSD approved $3.55 million settlement of two sexual abuse claims in addition to tens of millions paid previously for other victims. 

The lawsuits alleged that the Miramonte administration and LAUSD officials ignored multiple sexual misconduct of children dating back to the early 1980s by Berndt.

Between 1988 and 2011, he allegedly repeatedly assaulted the victims while they were in the third, fourth, and fifth grades at the facility, including feeding them cookies laced with bodily fluids and taking photos of them with tape over their eyes and mouths. 

In 2014, LAUSD agreed to pay $140 million to 81 victims allegedly abused by Berndt and another $30 million to the families of 65 students. 

In 2013, Berndt pleaded guilty to 23 charges of lewd conduct upon a child and was sentenced to 25 years in prison. 

• In April 2023, the LAUSD agreed to pay $6.5 million to a former student who sued the district and two administrators for not reporting the alleged sexual abuse of former science teacher, Jesus Salvador Saenz, at South East High School.  In 2008, former school administrators Jesus Angulo and Maria Sotomayor were convicted for not reporting the 17-year-old student’s sexual abuse claims to authorities, as they are required to do under the law, after they had knowledge of the abuse. Despite public criticism, they were later promoted within the LAUSD.

Visalia Unified School District (Mount Whitney High School)

• In November 2025, it was reported that a former student of Mount Whitney High School was awarded $8 million in a lawsuit against the Visalia Unified School District arising out of sexual abuse former Mount Whitney High School campus supervisor, De Jaun Jones, perpetrated against her in 2023.  The former student alleges that Jones exchanged nude photos with her when she was 15 and touched her inappropriately.   Jones had reportedly already been fired from Mount Whitney High a decade earlier for similar allegations but then was rehired in 2022.  Jones is accused of grooming high school girls, as well as normalizing inappropriate touching and conversations when he was a campus supervisor.  Jones had also been accused of similar behavior while working at Monache High School in Porterville Unified and at an In-Shape gym.  Jones is now being criminally prosecuted for sexual offenses. 

Victor Valley Union High School District (Victor Valley Junior High School)

• In October 2025, Victor Valley Union High School District agreed to a $12.5 million settlement in a lawsuit brought by eight survivors over child sexual abuse committed by former Victor Valley Junior High School counselor, Eric Lynn Brown.  Brown was arrested in 2002 and ultimately sentenced to 102 years in prison in 2005.  His convictions reportedly stemmed from molesting 10 underage victims while working at Victor Valley Junior High School, as well while working in the foster care system and as a staff member at an Adelanto probation home known as Success House.  Eight of those survivors, six of them male and two of them female, joined in the lawsuit.  Victor Valley Junior High eventually became University Preparatory School in 2008 before being abandoned in 2014 and ultimately demolished in 2020.

Montecito Union School District (Montecito Union School)

• In September 2025, Montecito Union School District announced a $7.5 million lawsuit settlement over alleged sexual abuse by a former Principal in the 1970s.  The lawsuit alleged that former Principal Stanford Kerr sexually assaulted two brothers between the years of 1972 and 1978 and that school staff knew of the abuse and failed to protect the two children. Kerr reportedly died in 2013.

Pomona Unified School District (Pomona High School)

• In September 2025, the Pomona Unified School District settled two lawsuits for $25 million – $7 million for one lawsuit and $18 million to be divided among three plaintiffs in a second.  They were settlements in the final two of a series of lawsuits alleging inappropriate conduct by former coaches against eight women while they were students at Pomona High School in the 1990s.  The former coaches named in the two lawsuits include Brian Crichlow, Herman Hopson, Derick Pugh and Vincent Spirlin.  Plaintiff Jane Doe #8, a track athlete, alleged that Hopson and Crichlow groomed her and sexually abused her on campus during her sophomore and junior years.  In the separate lawsuit, Jane Doe #5 alleged abuse by Crichlow, Jane Doe #6 alleged abuse by Hopson and Pugh and Jane Doe #7 alleged abuse by Sprilin.  All three alleged the coaches invited them into an office inside the boys’ locker room and offered them alcohol, with two also being offered marijuana before they were sexually abused both on and off campus.  Jane Doe #5 said she left Pomona High School after her freshman year because she was embarrassed about being referred to around campus as “Brian Crichlow’s girlfriend.”

• In January 2024, the Pomona Unified School District was ordered to pay $35 million in damages to a woman who accused former Pomona High School coach Herman Hopson of raping her in the 1990s.  In 1996, the victim allegedly witnessed male coaches and staff drinking, smoking marijuana, and giving alcohol to students during a track trip to Las Vegas.  In 1997, during another track trip to Las Vegas, Hopson allegedly raped her. According to the lawsuit, the coach remained employed by the school even after she reported the assault.

Redlands Unified School District (Redlands High School, Redlands East Valley High School and Citrus Valley High School)

• In September 2025, the Redlands Unified School District paid $1.4 million to settle a lawsuit with the first alleged victim of former high school teacher Laura Whitehurst, who sparked a sex abuse scandal after having a child with one of her students.  The lawsuit alleges that Whitehurst began sexually harassing the alleged victim in 2007, when he was a 14-year-old freshman, and the abuse lasted about a year.   Whitehurst groomed her alleged victim with sexually explicit text messages and telephone conversations under the guise of helping him with his homework and classwork. The conduct allegedly escalated with Whitehurst engaging in sex acts with her student in her classroom and in a teacher prep room on campus.  She engaged in oral sex and fondling and had sexual intercourse with the alleged victim, according to the lawsuit.  Whitehurst went on to sexually abuse multiple other students, according to lawsuits and reports.  In September 2023, the Redlands Unified School District paid $2.25 million to settle a lawsuit involving Whitehurst and in August 2016, the district agreed to pay $6 million to a former student who impregnated Whitehurst while she was his teacher.  In 2014, Whitehurst pleaded guilty to six of 41 charges of having sex with a minor and oral copulation with someone under 18.  Whitehurst was sentenced in August 2013 to a year in county jail.

• In August 2025, two former Redlands Unified students filed separate lawsuits alleging they were sexually abused as students at different high schools within the school district.  In the first lawsuit, a former Citrus Valley High School student alleged he was sexually abused in 2010 and 2011 by athletic trainer Melissa Jaques, who used the surname of Wuest at the time.  In the second lawsuit, a former Redlands East Valley High School student alleged she was sexually abused by volunteer cross-country coach Joshua Estrada from 2010 through 2013.  Both students were 15 years old at the time the alleged sexual abuse began. Both lawsuits allege that even though district officials knew about the allegations involving Wuest and Estrada, the school district did not act effectively to stop the sexual assaults or to protect the plaintiffs from the results of that trauma.

• In September 2023, the Redlands Unified School District paid $2.25 million to settle a lawsuit involving former high school teacher Laura Whitehurst who allegedly sexually abused multiple students at Redlands High School. In August 2016, the district agreed to pay $6 million to a former student who impregnated Whitehust while she was his teacher. In 2014, Whitehurst pleaded guilty to six of 41 charges of having sex with a minor and oral copulation with someone under 18.

Twin Rivers Unified School District (Del Paso Heights Elementary School)

• In August 2025, Twin Rivers Unified School District reached a $6 million settlement involving sexual abuse allegedly perpetrated by Kim Kenneth Wilson, a former Del Paso Heights Elementary School teacher.  According to the lawsuit, Wilson used his authority as head of the school’s audio-visual club to isolate the sixth-grade victim in a locked, windowless, soundproof room where the abuse took place during the 2014-15 school year.  According to the complaint, Wilson also allegedly photographed the abuse.  Wilson pleaded guilty to committing sex crimes against students in February of 2025.   The lawsuit further alleged that Twin Rivers failed to properly supervise Wilson and ignored complaints regarding Wilson, allowing his misconduct to go unchecked for several years.  Another family is reportedly seeking damages from Wilson and Twin Rivers through a separate civil case filed in June 2023 which is still proceeding in court. That complaint reportedly alleges that Wilson began pulling the then-7-year-old student out of her class periods and recess under the guise of needing help with new camera equipment, after which he removed her clothing and took photos of her while sexually assaulting her on multiple occasions.

San Ramon Valley Unified School District (San Ramon Valley High School)

• In July 2025, the San Ramon Valley Unified School District agreed to a nearly $7 million settlement involving the alleged sexual abuse of two students by Ryan Weible, a former high school theater teacher at San Ramon Valley High School.  According to a lawsuit against the district, Weible groomed and abused the then-minors over several years, including on school grounds, his apartment and during a school-sponsored senior trip to New York City.  One suit filed in 2024 alleged that Weible began grooming a student beginning in the 2009–10 school year.  He bought her meals and gifts, and spent time alone with her in the windowless theater room, the suit claimed.  The following school year, Weible allegedly abused her in the theater room on campus in the middle of the night.  The school’s alarm system went off and police responded.  Records reportedly show that in 2011, police and district personnel found unused condoms on the desk, a condom wrapper on the ground and a used condom in the garbage can. The district allegedly reprimanded him, instructing him to “refrain from inappropriate conduct while on school property” and to stop staying overnight on school property.  The suit claimed that Weible gave students side hugs, hand massages and had female students sit on his lap.  After the lawsuit was filed in February 2024, a second victim came forward, alleging Weible sexually assaulted her on school grounds from the beginning of the 2011 school year at San Ramon Valley High School.  Weible was reportedly the assistant head of school for the Bentley School, a private K–12 school with campuses in Lafayette and Oakland, as recently as 2024, according to the school’s website.

California School for the Deaf

• In July 2025, the California School for the Deaf settled for $14 million with a former student who suffered years of sexual abuse at the hands of a dorm attendant, Ricardo Rose, whose history of complaints were allegedly ignored by the boarding school.  The sexual abuse allegedly occurred between 2009 and 2011 beginning when the victim was 10 years old.  The victim reported the abuse in 2018 and Rose was arrested and convicted of felony charges.  During the abuse, Rose reportedly raped the victim and signed that Rose would bite the victim’s fingers off if he told anyone about the abuse.

Clovis Unified School District (Fancher Creek Elementary School and Freedom Elementary School)

• In June 2025, five women brought lawsuits against the Clovis Unified School District and Fancher Creek Elementary School based on allegations that their second-grade teacher and convicted child sex abuser, Neng Yang, sexually abused them as children from 1998 to 2012. Yang taught at Fancher Creek before moving to Freedom Elementary, both within the Clovis Unified School District. In 2012, Yang was arrested for sex crimes against a 7-year-old student, including recording the acts in a locked classroom at Freedom. He is currently serving a 38-year sentence for those crimes. The lawsuits claim that several of the survivors reported the abuse to the school, but nothing was done to stop it.

Mountain View Whisman School District (Crittenden Middle School)

• In June 2025, the Mountain View Whisman School District settled claims brought by two former students alleging sexual misconduct by a former Crittenden Middle School teacher and administrator who worked at the school in the 1970s for $1.6 million.  The two former students were students at Crittenden in the 1970s and allege that they were groomed and sexually assaulted by a man, Steven Myers, working as a teacher and vice principal at the school.  Santa Cruz City Schools agreed in 2024 to pay $4.5 million to settle claims with two other plaintiffs who alleged sexual abuse by the same educator.

Mountain View School District (Miramonte Elementary School)

• In April 2025, a jury awarded $48 million to six former students of the Mountain View School District who were allegedly sexually abused by their former teacher, Joseph Baldenebro, between the early 2000s and 2017 at Miramonte Elementary School. Baldenebro allegedly inappropriately touched, assaulted, or harassed his students when they were between the ages of 8 and 10.  The Mountain View School District allegedly knew about the abuse as far back as the 1990s but failed to act. Baldenebro was convicted in 2018 of lewd or lascivious acts with children and sentenced to 8 years in prison. A second set of criminal charges related to child sexual abuse was filed against him in 2022 and resulted in a no-contest plea in the summer of 2024 and he was sentenced to 12 years in prison.

Sacramento City Unified School District (Bowling Green Chacon Language and Science Academy)

• In April 2025, Enrique Rodriguez Valladares, a former third-grade teacher at Bowling Green Chacon Language and Science Academy in Sacramento, was sentenced to eight years in prison for sexually abusing students between 2017 and 2019.  In March 2025, Valladares pleaded guilty to 19 counts of sexual abuse, including three counts of lewd acts with a child under 14 and 16 counts of child molestation. The students Valladares was convicted of abusing were part of a dual-immersion language school designed to help immigrant families educate their children.  Survivors of sexual abuse perpetrated by Valladres alleged in lawsuits that between 2008 and 2013, the former principal of the school ignored complaints about Valladares locking students in his classroom and did nothing to investigate or stop the alleged abuse.

San Bruno Park School District (El Crystal Elementary School and Allen Elementary School)

• In March 2025, a lawsuit was filed against the San Bruno Park School District over claims that former elementary school teacher Jeremy Yeh sexually abused students between 2016 and 2023. According to a lawsuit filed by survivors, Yeh would use a game called “tickle time” to grope children in first and second grade. Also according to the lawsuit, administrators at El Crystal Elementary School in San Bruno allegedly ignored a student’s abuse report in 2016–2017 and allowed Yeh to continue teaching at Allen Elementary School, leading to the sexual abuse of at least 17 children at two schools.  School administrators allegedly covered up abuse by Yeh, failed to report it to authorities, ignored and disciplined students who spoke out or called them liars, and took no action to prevent further abuse. In February 2025, Yeh was convicted of 17 felony counts of child molestation. 

La Sierra Academy

• In February 2025, former school counselor Matthew Daniel Johnson was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison for allegedly possessing child sexual abuse material and hiding a camera in a school bathroom to film students at La Sierra Academy. Johnson admitted to law enforcement officials that he had hid a pen-shaped recording device in a toilet paper holder at the bathroom located across the hall from his office at the school.

Tamalpais Union High School District (Tamalpais High School)

• In December 2024, the Tamalpais Union High School District was ordered to pay $17.5 million to four former students who were allegedly sexually abused by former tennis coach Normandie Burgos in the early 2000s at Tamalpais High School.  Burgos allegedly took students to a private room, undressed them, laid them on a massage table, and abused them. The earliest victim said Burgos raped and sodomized him starting in 1999. In 2019, Burgos was convicted on 60 counts of child molestation after an athlete secretly recorded him admitting to having sex with a minor. One victim testified that a school administrator once saw Burgos abusing him, but instead of intervening, the administrator made a joke and walked away.

Folsom Cordova Unified School District (Cordova High School)

• In December 2024, the Folsom Cordova Unified School District was ordered to pay a family $1.7 million in damages for allegedly failing to stop a student from abusing another student and failing to report the abuse.  In 2019, a complaint was filed claiming that an 18-year-old special education student repeatedly sexually and emotionally abused a 12-year-old special needs child on a bus to a summer program at Cordova High School in June 2018.  A bus driver-in-training allegedly saw the older student groping the younger student but only reported the incident to the district dispatcher, not to law enforcement or Child Protective Services as they were required to do as mandated reporters under California law.

Norwalk-La Mirada Unified School District (Los Alisos Middle School)

• In September 2024, two victims of former teacher Scott Waln, who was convicted of sexual abuse, sued the Norwalk-La Mirada Unified School District for allowing him to return after they reported his abuse. Waln allegedly abused an 11-year-old girl at Los Alisos Middle School, and although police investigated and removed him from the campus, he was allowed to return a year later and abused more children. The young woman whom Waln abused when she was a child said she wasn’t seen or heard by school officials and that Waln’s return to teaching, while she was still a student there, was traumatic. After Waln was permitted to return and abused more students, he was eventually arrested, convicted and sentenced to 30 years to life in prison.

Alum Rock Union School District (Adelante Dual Language Academy, William Sheppard Middle School, and Ben Painter Elementary)

• In June 2024, former students sued the Alum Rock Union School District for negligence in allegedly allowing former music teacher Israel Santiago to work at three San Jose schools where he allegedly abused over 30 female students. The lawsuit alleged the district hired Santiago as a music teacher despite knowing about his inappropriate behavior.  In 2022, Santiago was arrested for sexually assaulting students under 12 years old at Adelante Dual Language Academy.  In 2023, he was convicted of four felony counts for lewd acts on a child and nine counts of child molestation.  In June 2024, more victims came forward from William Sheppard Middle School and Ben Painter Elementary, where Santiago worked in 2012–2014 before being transferred to Adelante.

Thacher School

• In May 2024, a lawsuit was filed alleging an unnamed former administrator at the Thacher School sexually harassed, assaulted and raped a student on multiple occasions from 1984 to 1988. An internal investigation accused eight former Thacher staffers by name of sexual misconduct against students, including harassment, assault and rape and eight open cases against Thacher, filed between March 2021 and May 2023, contain allegations that Thacher failed to prevent or properly respond to sexual abuse allegations.

Berryessa Union School District

• In April 2024, the Berryessa Union School District agreed to pay $10.3 million to former students of Sierramont Middle School who were allegedly groomed and sexually abused by teacher Ronald Dean Gardner during the late 1990s and early 2000s. 

Gardner was sentenced to prison in December 2023.

The district allegedly failed to protect students by allowing Gardner to remain employed despite misconduct complaints and not providing adequate supervision.

• In July 2022, a lawsuit was filed against the Berryessa Union School District, alleging that the district failed to protect an eighth-grade student from sexual abuse by Gardner during the 1997-1998 school year. 

Gardner allegedly groomed the victims, made inappropriate comments, and inappropriately touched them. 

Santa Barbara Unified School District (Dos Pueblos High School)

• In December 2023, jurors awarded $25 million to a former Santa Barbara Unified School District student who was allegedly sexually abused by Justin Sell, a former assistant coach and security guard at Dos Pueblos High School in Goleta.  Sell was convicted of felony sex crimes involving multiple boys, including stalking and sexual abuse, and the school district was alleged to have repeatedly ignored warnings about him.

Moreno Valley Unified School District (Vista Heights Middle School) 

• In October 2023, a Riverside jury returned a $135 million verdict in favor of two former students who were repeatedly sexually abused by former middle school teacher, Thomas Lee West, in the mid-1990s after findings that the Moreno Valley Unified School District was negligent. West allegedly repeatedly sexually abused two former students in 1996 and 1997 when they were sixth graders at Vista Heights Middle School. West was convicted of committing lewd or lascivious acts with minors and sentenced to 52 years to life.

Pasadena Unified School District (Focus Point Academy)

• In August 2022, a $26 million verdict was awarded to a former Pasadena Unified School District special education student who was sexually assaulted at Focus Point Academy. In May 2016, the 11-year-old special education student was allegedly sexually assaulted by three male classmates after a teacher’s aide left her unsupervised.

 San Francisco Unified School District (Lowell High School)

• In May 2025, the San Francisco Unified School District agreed to pay $1.5 million to a former student who alleged he was sexually abused by Harlen Edelman, a former teacher and counselor at Lowell High School during the 2004-2005 school year.  According to the victim’s lawsuit, Edelman helped the student improve his grades just to gain his trust. Edelman reportedly abused the victim on the Lowell High School campus, including in his office and classroom. The lawsuit also alleges that another student reported that she had been sexually assaulted during the same school year by another counselor and that Edelman helped cover up for that counselor. School officials were accused of not taking proper action despite the student and the parents reporting the sexual assault. Edelman went on to teach at the SFUSD Academy – San Francisco @ McAteer and worked for the school district until he resigned in September 2013. The following year, he was arrested in a police operation in Mountain View after he reportedly posed as a 17-year-old boy on a website and tried to meet up with a minor at a park.

Hesperia Unified School District

• In January 2019, Maple Elementary School custodian Pedro Martinez was arrested for allegedly sexually abusing and kidnapping a boy. 

At least four victims came forward alleging abuse by Martinez. The district allegedly failed to protect the victims and allowed the abuse to persist.

• In January 2016, Robert Gore, former substitute teacher for the Hesperia Unified School District and children’s ministry coordinator at Calvary Chapel High Desert in Hesperia was arrested for allegedly sexually abusing a boy for years. 

Moraga School District

• In June 2014, the Moraga School District agreed to pay $14 million to two women who filed a lawsuit alleging long-term sexual abuse by Daniel Witters at Joaquin Moraga Intermediate School.

Witters allegedly abused the victims more than 50 times each in the 1990s. Several other girls allegedly came forward. School officials allegedly covered up the abuse and failed to protect the victims.

• In June 2015, it was reported that $2.85 million was awarded to a victim of Witters and physical education teacher and girls’ sports coach Julie Correa. 

Correa allegedly groomed and repeatedly molested the victim for years.

She was sentenced to eight years in prison in December 2011.

The school district paid a total of $18.65 million to the victim and three others who had filed civil lawsuits alleging abuse connected to Moraga School District schools in California.

LK is Investigating Sexual Abuse Claims in California Schools

Levy Konigsberg is investigating cases of sexual abuse and assault that occurred at California schools.

You may have a potential claim if you were sexually abused in any of the following schools or districts:

• Twin Rivers Unified School District (Del Paso Heights Elementary School)
• San Ramon Valley Unified School District (San Ramon Valley High School)
• California School for the Deaf
• Sacramento City Unified School District (South Sacramento Elementary School)
• San Bruno Park School District (El Crystal Elementary School, Allen Elementary School)
• La Sierra Academy
• Thacher School
• Alum Rock Union School District (Adelante Dual Language Academy, William Sheppard Middle School, Ben Painter Elementary)
• Norwalk-La Mirada Unified School District (Los Alisos Middle School)
• Mountain View School District (Miramonte Elementary School)
• Tamalpais Union High School District (Tamalpais High School)
• Folsom Cordova Unified School District (Cordova High School)
• Pomona Unified School District (Pomona High School)
• Los Angeles Unified School District (Miramonte Elementary School, South East High School)
• Santa Barbara Unified School District (Dos Pueblos High School)
• Moreno Valley Unified School District (Vista Heights Middle School)
• Redlands Unified School District (Redlands High School, Redlands East Valley High School and Citrus Valley High School)
• Pasadena Unified School District (Focus Point Academy)
• San Francisco Unified School District (Lowell High School)
  
• Clovis Unified School District (Fancher Creek Elementary School and Freedom Elementary School)
  
• Mountain View Whisman School District (Crittenden Middle School)
  
• Montecito Union School District (Montecito Union School)
• Victor Valley Union High School District (Victor Valley Junior High School)
• Visalia Unified School District (Mount Whitney High School)
• Berryessa Union School District
• Hesperia Unified School District
• Moraga School District

Do I Have a Case?

You may have grounds to file a civil legal action if:

• You were sexually abused by a teacher or staff at a school.
• The abuse occurred at any school.

Levy Konigsberg represents survivors in civil lawsuits that aim to hold schools accountable for their failures to stop abusive teachers and staff.

As civil claims, these cases are separate from any criminal proceedings that may arise from abuse and focus instead on holding institutions liable for damages. This means you may still have a claim even if:

• Your abuser is no longer alive.
• Your abuser was never charged with or convicted of a crime.

Recoverable Damages in Sexual Abuse Claims

In addition to providing accountability and a sense of justice, civil sex abuse lawsuits allow survivors to recover financial compensation for their damages, which may include:

• Past medical and mental health expenses
• Future mental health expenses, including therapy, medications, etc.
• Pain and suffering
• Emotional anguish and psychological harm
• Lost income
• Other economic and non-economic damages

California Sexual Abuse Attorneys

Sexual abuse lawsuits, like other claims brought by plaintiffs who seek damages for injuries, are subject to a legal deadline known as the statute of limitations. When the statute of limitations expires, victims are not able to file claims or recover compensation.

Fortunately, California has recognized that the statute of limitations can act as a barrier to justice for sexual abuse survivors, which research has shown can take years or decades to come to terms with their abuse and the damages it had caused. As such, California passed the Child Victims Act in 2019 to extend the statute of limitations for child sexual abuse lawsuits.

Under the CA Child Victims Act

• Survivors sexually abused as minors can file claims until age 40 (22 years after turning 18)

Determining the statute of limitations that applies to your sexual abuse case against a California school can be challenging, which is why it is best to bring your matter to the attention of an experienced lawyer.

We are committed to protecting the most vulnerable members of our society and seeking justice for survivors of sexual abuse in schools. Our experienced team is dedicated to providing legal representation and support to survivors, and we are actively investigating allegations of abuse. We are working tirelessly to ensure that survivors have access to justice and that future generations of young people are safe from harm within these institutions.