By Steve Crane | Editor-in-chief
“If their [legislators’] intent was to undo sovereign immunity, isn’t it a little odd that they didn’t mention it?” - Maryland Chief Justice Matthew Fader, during arguments Monday over whether a 2003 law lifting time limits to file institutional sex abuse claims also applies to claims before 1982, when the state enjoyed immunity from most lawsuits.
The state’s highest court heard a case Monday that could cost — or save — the state roughly $1 billion in lawsuit penalties, and the federal government was handing millions to the state for rural health care. Welcome to your Tuesday headlines.
After lawmakers approved the Child Victims Act in 2023, removing deadlines for filing claims of institutional sex abuse, thousand of claims were filed that could cost the state up to $12 billion. Lawmakers later tried to rein in the law, and state attorneys were before the Supreme Court of Maryland on Monday arguing that cases from before 1982, which would cost about $1 billion, should be excluded. Bryan P. Sears has that story.
Meanwhile, the federal government was handing out a second round of funding to states to improve rural health care, including $168.4 million for Maryland. The Rural Health Transformation Fund allocated $50 billion, at $10 billion a year for five years, to help rural healthcare facilities offset what are expected to be even steeper losses in Medicaid funding under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, as Nada Hassanein reports.
Those stories, plus news about federal pay raises, or the lack thereof, are below along with commentary and headlines from the week. Enjoy!
The Maryland Supreme Court building. (File Photo by Bennett Leckrone/Maryland Matters)
By Bryan P. Sears
Maryland's highest court heard arguments on an appeal Monday that will affect 1,300 lawsuits filed under the Child Victims Act.
The 2023 law effectively eliminated time barriers for someone to file a court claim of institutional sex abuse. At issue are the roughly 1,300 cases in which the alleged sexual assaults took place before 1982, a time when the state had absolute immunity from lawsuits. The Supreme Court of Maryland is being asked to decide if the General Assembly, when it passed the landmark 2023 law, clearly and knowingly waived that immunity.
Jonathan Massey, attorney for a plaintiff identified only as J.C., said the waiver of damage caps in the 2023 law are proof of the legislature's intent, and the state should pay for abuse that occurred in its facilities. Monday's appeal involves a claim of sexual abuse from 1977, when J.C. was a patient at the old Prince George’s Hospital Center, where she claimed a doctor molested her during a stay there.
The pre-1982 cases are a fraction of the 12,000 claims that have been filed since passage of the 2023 law and represent “more than a billion” of the potentially $12 billion in damages the state could face for those claims.
Federal officials announced second round of rural health grants to states under the Rural Health Transformation Fund. (Photo by David DeWitt/Ohio Capital Journal)
By Nada Hassanein
Federal officials on Monday announced $10 billion in awards across all 50 states in the second year of the Rural Health Transformation Fund, grants created by Congress to bolster rural health in response to concerns about Medicaid cuts.
Maryland will receive $168.4 million, among the smallest awards for states and essentially unchanged from last year’s $168 million. Texas received the largest grant for the 2027 fiscal year — almost $282 million — followed by Alaska, Montana, California and Oklahoma. The five-year fund, which started last year, is providing $50 billion in grants to address rural healthcare access and health improvement, with $10 billion available each year until 2030.
Congress created the program in response to concern from rural health care providers — and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle — about the effects of sweeping Medicaid cuts in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that President Donald Trump signed last year. Rural areas are expected to lose about $137 billion under that bill, according to one estimate.
IN OTHER NEWS
Hegseth blasts military education: As calls for his impeachment grew, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth came to the U.S. Naval War College in Newport Monday and called for stripping military education of what he called its overly civilian influence.
Uneven federal raises: Most civilian federal employees face a pay freeze next year, but the Trump administration is expanding the number of law enforcement personnel who will get at least a 3.8% raise, with some seeing up to 6.7%, under a new OPM memo.
Political notes: Gov. Wes Moore appears on another network show and is asked again about his political future, the League of Conservation Voters taps Jason Donofrio as its next director, and Progressive Maryland talks artificial intelligence, in political notes.
TODAY'S COMMENTARY
Marylanders are already paying for the effects of climate change, with their responses to flooding and other climate disasters, writes Jamie DeMarco, but it's time for the state to make fossil fuel companies pay for their share of the damage with the RENEW Act.
MATTERS YOU MAY HAVE MISSED
A costly insurance search: Thousands of Marylanders face another round of sticker shock while shopping for healthcare this year under the Affordable Care Act, with a second year of steep premium increases after the expiration last year of federal tax credits.
And pricey health services: Overall U.S. healthcare costs rose from $3 trillion in 2014 to $5.3 trillion in 2024, forcing people to forgo health insurance, ration medications, cut back doctor visits and put off health procedures, making healthcare "an all-of-us issue.”
Lame duck in a hurry: Voters may have given Democrats control of Congress, but Republicans still control both chambers for the next two months, and they have a lot to deal with in the five-week session that begins Monday, including another stopgap budget.
Little fish, big decision: A big fight over a little fish that no one eats comes to a head this week, with East Coast fishery managers set to decide whether to slash industrial-scale harvests of Atlantic menhaden in the Chesapeake Bay and along the East Coast as well.
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