{"id":445090,"date":"2026-08-27T12:37:03","date_gmt":"2026-08-27T12:37:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/445090\/"},"modified":"2026-08-27T12:37:03","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T12:37:03","slug":"will-lawmakers-revive-school-sex-abuse-lawsuit-reform-in-sacramento-deadline-nears-the-mendocino-voice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/445090\/","title":{"rendered":"Will lawmakers revive school sex abuse lawsuit reform in Sacramento? Deadline nears \u2022 The Mendocino Voice"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"has-white-color has-primary-background-color has-text-color has-background has-link-color wp-elements-1 wp-block-paragraph\">This was written by staff at the nonprofit newsroom EdSource. It was republished by The Mendocino Voice in partnership with EdSource to bring relevant education news to Mendocino County readers. Learn more about EdSource <a href=\"https:\/\/edsource.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">SACRAMENTO, CA., 8\/26\/2026 \u2014 As the end of the legislative session nears, Sacramento lawmakers are again debating whether to reform a law that has enabled countless lawsuits and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/edsource.org\/2026\/reform-ab218-sexual-abuse\/749197\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">hundreds of millions of dollars in settlements against school districts and other public agencies<\/a>\u00a0that serve youth.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">At issue is AB 218, a 2020 law that lifted the statute of limitations to sue for childhood sexual abuse and enabled a blitz of costly litigation against schools and public agencies. In some cases, victims have received tens of millions of dollars for sexual assaults and abuses they claim took place decades ago at the hands of teachers and other public employees.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, D-Hollister, has floated capping victim payouts, a move opposed by\u00a0victim\u2019s\u00a0rights groups and plaintiff lawyers.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Two people with knowledge of the situation have told EdSource in recent days that\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0unlikely state lawmakers will pass a reform bill this year. A similar effort\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/edsource.org\/2025\/california-school-abuse-lawsuits\/741453\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">collapsed in the waning days of the legislative session last year.<\/a>\u00a0 No legislation had been introduced as of late Thursday. The legislative session\u00a0ends\u00a0Aug. 31.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Still, competing groups worked to call attention to their positions on Thursday. Victims\u2019 rights groups, backed by lawyers, rallied outside the California State Capitol in Sacramento. They said they were concerned about talks of possible \u201clegislation that would slam the courthouse door on survivors,\u201d limit damages and burden victims with the costs of treatment, Chantel Johnson, an advocate at the San Francisco-based Youth Law Center, said in a statement.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Late Thursday, a coalition of public agencies \u2014 including counties, school districts,\u00a0cities\u00a0and joint power authorities \u2014 met on Zoom to push their position that the settlements are too costly and are cutting deeply into basic government services.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">EdSource reported in March that reform ideas being kicked around this year were similar to 2025 proposals, such as limiting awards and setting higher legal standards to win a case.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The vast majority of\u00a0cases settle before reaching a trial, let alone jury deliberations.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This article first appeared in EdSource <a href=\"https:\/\/edsource.org\/updates\/will-lawmakers-revive-school-sex-abuse-lawsuit-reform-in-sacramento-deadline-nears\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This was written by staff at the nonprofit newsroom EdSource. It was republished by The Mendocino Voice in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":445091,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[2748,7024,121,123,122,176360],"class_list":["post-445090","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sacramento","tag-california-state-legislature","tag-edsource","tag-sacramento","tag-sacramento-headlines","tag-sacramento-news","tag-sexual-abuse-in-schools"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=445090"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445090\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/445091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=445090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=445090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=445090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}