SAN FRANCISCO (Legal Newsline) - A California law providing treble damages for victims of child sexual abuse that was covered up doesn't extend to public entities, the California Supreme Court ruled, overturning several prior cases that suggested there was a difference between treble and punitive damages.
Section 818 of California’s Government Claims Act states government entities can’t be held liable for “damages imposed primarily for the sake of example and by way of punishing the defendants.” That definition includes treble damages, the California Supreme Court ruled in a June 1 decision, rejecting plaintiff arguments it made no sense to exempt schools from a law designed to discourage coverups of sexual assault.
A plaintiff identified Jane Doe sued the Los Angeles school district after she was assaulted by an employee when she was a ninth-grader at Daniel Pearl Magnet High School. The employee had been transferred to Daniel Pearl after district officials learned he had been accused of having a “boyfriend-girlfriend” relationship with another female student at a different school. The plaintiff argued district covered up his prior relationship with a false report stating the two had dated before the employee was hired.
The plaintiff sued under Section 340.1 of the Civil Code, which allows treble damages for assaults that are “the result of a cover up.” But the trial court granted the district’s motion to strike the treble damages portion of the claim, and an appeals court affirmed. The California Supreme Court upheld the ruling in a June 1 decision.
The plaintiff argued the plain language of the government tort claims statute limited it to punitive damages. But “Section 818 is not so limited,” the Supreme Court ruled. It also protects the government – and by extension, taxpayers – from “other damages that would function, in essence, as an award of punitive of exemplary damages.
Damages in excess of compensation “further drain the public fisc, create a liability that will be borne not by the immediate wrongdoers but by taxpayers, and may not effectively achieve the goals of retribution and deterrence — and for these reasons, such awards should not be permitted,” the court concluded.
On appeal, the plaintiff cited a trio of California Supreme Court decisions that said damages were allowed under Section 818 if they “fulfill legitimate and fully justified compensatory functions.” While that didn’t necessarily mean treble damages, the court said it was overruling those holdings because it “found it necessary to foreclose future invocation of language so clearly at odds with that of the statute it purports to apply.”
Finally, the court rejected arguments it was absurd to exempt schools, the site of so much sexual abuse of minors, from a law intended to protect children. “The legislative history materials manifest a concern with childhood sexual assaults occurring not only at public schools, but also at private schools, sporting leagues and organizations, religious institutions, and wherever else they may occur,” the court said.