Sexual assault bill sparks clash among 2 SLO County legislators, survivor groups
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- SB 577 failed to pass, preserving legal pathways for adult survivors over 40.
- Bill would have raised burden of proof, reduced damages, and limited filing windows.
- Survivor groups and local officials opposed SB 577 for weakening victim protections.
A San Luis Obispo County lawmaker introduced a bill to protect public entities from the financial burden of childhood sexual assault cases — but local leaders and survivor groups say it would come at the expense of the survivors themselves.
That’s because it would reduce the statute of limitations certain survivors had to file their cases, critics of the bill said.
Now, much to its critics’ relief, Senate Bill 577 will no longer make it to a vote this year.
Also, in an unusual twist, the dispute occurred between two Democratic lawmakers who both hail from the Central Coast, with legislation from one potentially undoing that of another.
Championed by Sen. John Laird, D-Santa Cruz, SB 577 was meant to shield public entities like school districts, counties or cities from going bankrupt over decades-old sexual abuse settlements that can reach into the millions of dollars — an issue that has threatened the survival of schools across the state.
The bill aimed to do so by increasing the burden of proof on those over 40 seeking accountability from these public institutions, therefore making it more difficult for adult survivors of childhood sexual assault to prove their abuse in California courts. It also placed a time limit on bringing forward certain cases, reduced the damages survivors can receive from public institutions and created a carve-out to exempt Los Angeles County’s probation department from future litigation.
The bill’s analysis calls SB 577 a “significant compromise between stakeholders,” but according to Assemblymember Dawn Addis, D-Morro Bay, the bill would’ve rolled back victim protections she fought for and legalized just two years ago.
“It’s not a compromise,” Addis told The Tribune. “I was never part of the conversations of the formation of this bill. Neither were survivor groups across our state.”
Laird holds that he did work with survivor advocacy organizations to author the bill. The National Center for Victims of Crime and CHILD USA both wrote letters of support for SB 577 on Sept. 8, which Laird’s office shared with The Tribune. Neither group is based in California.
Regardless, the bill did not make it through this legislative session.
“I had hoped to protect survivors’ access to justice while finding some fiscal relief to local governments,” Laird told The Tribune in a statement. “ ... Despite these months of hard work, it was just impossible to balance these interests to get to a successful outcome this year.”
Jennifer Adams, the founder and CEO of Lumina Alliance, saw the bill’s delay as a win. Lumina is a local non-profit organization that provides services to survivors of sexual assault, domestic abuse and intimate partner violence.
“I’m super grateful to everyone who came forward and raised these concerns to allow us to find a better solution to this,” Adams told The Tribune.
Other groups to reject the bill included Court-Appointed Special Advocates of SLO, the SLO County District Attorney’s Office and the Association Of California School Administrators. Those in support include Los Angeles, Fresno, Monterey and Orange counties; the California associations of Child and Family Services and School Business Officials; and the non-California based survivor groups.
“SB 577 directly undermines decades of progress made for survivors of childhood sexual assault,” District Attorney Dan Dow wrote in an opinion for The Tribune and in an identical letter of opposition to Laird. “From a victim-centered perspective, this legislation prioritizes the fiscal interests of public entities over justice for some of society’s most vulnerable victims, creating concerning legal barriers that fundamentally weaken the ability of survivors to seek accountability.”
Sen. Laird’s bill creates barriers for sexual assault survivors, local advocates say
Well before Adams founded Lumina as an adult, she was a survivor of childhood sexual assault.
But she didn’t come forward until it was too late.
As a 30-year-old in 1995 — when the age limit allowed childhood sexual assault survivors to bring their cases forward up to the age of 26 — she missed the cut-off to take legal action by four years.
In 2020, the statute of limitations was temporarily raised to 40 by Assembly Bill 218, then eliminated entirely in 2023 on all future cases under Addis’ Assembly Bill 452.
Victims whose assaults took place before 2024 are still subject to the 40-year-old age limit under that bill, but there is a five-year discovery window — meaning survivors who only realized they experienced childhood assault after they turned 40 would have five years from that discovery to file a lawsuit. Adams said this delayed realization is a common experience surrounding traumatic experiences.
“It is more common than not that childhood victims of abuse don’t come forward until much later into adulthood,” she told The Tribune. “There’s lots of reasons for that. There’s shame, there’s thinking it was their fault. Maybe they were threatened.”
By temporarily lifting the statute of limitations, AB 218 opened a window for these survivors to bring their cases forth years later.
If passed, Adams said, SB 577 would’ve reinstituted barriers for adult survivors seeking justice that she and lawmakers like Addis fought hard to remove.
“We’ve been making progress over the last several decades to eliminate those barriers,” she said. “This bill is going backwards.”
When AB 218 created a temporary lookback window to reopen expired claims, it also unleashed an estimated $2 billion to $3 billion in settlement fees on California school districts, the statewide group Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team estimated in a January report.
With SB 577, Laird attempted to preserve survivors’ rights to sue while balancing the financial ability of public agencies to respond.
But Addis said the bill failed to do that, instead creating a “de facto statute of limitations” by increasing the burden of proof on adult survivors over 40.
Though it did not technically reinstate a statute of limitations, SB 577 did include language that would have required survivors over 40 to prove public institutions or its employees acted with “gross negligence” — raising the bar from the previous standard, which was that the entity acted “wrongfully or negligently.” The criteria would not apply to private institutions.
In that way, Addis said, Laird’s bill undermined AB 452 by establishing a double-standard for public versus private institutions.
The bill also would’ve shortened the discovery period for survivors over 40 from five years to three years for assaults that took place before 2024 and eliminated provisions for seeking treble damages — triple the amount proven — from institutions that engaged in a cover-up of childhood sexual assault.
Finally, the bill would’ve created a carve-out for Los Angeles County by requiring all new cases against any probation or detention center operated by L.A. County that closed before 2020 — including the MacLaren Children’s Center — to be filed before the end of the year.
After decades of reports of widespread abuse, neglect and unsafe conditions, MacLaren shut down in 2003 following investigations and lawsuits, but it was far from the only L.A. County facility facing abuse issues.
In April, L.A. County paid out a $4 billion settlement on more than 6,800 sexual abuse claims from MacLaren and other L.A. facilities. The settlement nearly bankrupt California’s most populous county.
This provision in SB 577 was meant to specifically protect L.A. County from insolvency, but it also would’ve shortened the statute of limitations on survivors of abuse at L.A. facilities to as little as six years.
Take, for example, a survivor who experienced abuse in an L.A. facility at age 17 in 2019, before the facility closed. That survivor would only have until the age of 23 to come forward in 2026, which would be the cut-off for filing a case under SB 577.
That would create a statute of limitations 17 years shorter than the statewide statute of 40 for sexual assaults that took place before 2024 — “archaic levels that California has not seen in years,” Addis said.
“Survivors need time to come forward,” Addis said. “Age should not be a barrier.”
Schools are still at risk of pricey settlements
Despite their complaints, all critics of SB 577 acknowledge the root issue Laird attempted to address — that California’s schools are at risk of closing down if they can’t afford to pay sexual assault settlements.
The issue largely stems not from recent cases but rather from litigation of incidents that occurred several decades ago, in which individual abusers — such as a teacher — may have already died, leaving the school district — and its current students — to pay the price of justice for the survivor.
This happened on the Central Coast in the Montecito Union Elementary District, where the district was negotiating a settlement over sexual assault claims from the 1970s brought in 2023 that could end up costing over $20 million — more than the district’s annual budget — CalMatters reported in July. The district’s insurance policy won’t cover the cost, and the settlement could bankrupt the district.
SLO County schools have yet to face a settlement that overwhelms their budgets, but local districts are far from risk-free.
The Lucia Mar Unified School District is in the process of paying out a $1.25 million sexual abuse settlement to five former Nipomo High School students who were sexually assaulted and harassed by former wrestling coach Justin Magdaleno. The students are to be paid $250,000 each in monthly installments over 10 years that began in 2021, The Tribune reported at the time of the settlement.
In a 2023 lawsuit against the San Luis Coastal district and former San Luis Obispo High School basketball coach Jeff Brandow, the district claimed at the time that it could not be held liable for sexual harassment, but still ended up paying a settlement, district Assistant Superintendent Ryan Pinkerton told The Tribune. The district also paid a settlement over former Morro Bay High School teacher Tyler Dale Andree’s sexual misconduct. Pinkerton did not specify the amounts of the settlements.
Other SLO County schools have avoided liability for sexual assault claims against former employees altogether.
The Atascadero Unified School District was not named in the sexual abuse lawsuit of former teacher Chris Lynn Berdoll in 2018 and 2019 and thus did not face financial liability, according to court records.
Berdoll was sentenced to more than four years in prison in 2021 after he was convicted of taking indecent videos of girls in his sixth-grade math class.
All SLO County schools are covered by the same insurance carrier, Self-Insured Schools of California.
The liability policy has a $25,000 to $50,000 deductible for sexual abuse and molestation coverage for districts, but it excludes willful or intentional acts by individuals, meaning teachers may be denied coverage if their conduct is found to be intentional in claims of sexual assault.
“We’ve denied claims to an employee, but I cannot think of a case that we denied coverage to a school district,” Robert Kretzmer, executive director of the property and liability department at Self-Insured Schools of California, told The Tribune.
He said that claims against school districts are usually for “negligent hiring, retention or supervising” of the accused employee.
“It’s different in a sense,” Kretzmer said. “That’s where our investigation is focused when we get a claim for sexual misconduct.”
The insurer has been operating in SLO County since 1979. Its policy covers schools for as far back as the legal statute of limitations extends.
“We are bound by the law,” Kretzmer said.
The Atascadero school district did not immediately respond to The Tribune’s request for comment. Lucia Mar told The Tribune to contact Self-Insured Schools of California.
SB 577 will not pass this year
After passing through the state Senate earlier this year, SB 577 was expected to go to a vote in the Assembly this week, but despite his efforts, Sen. Laird could not get his bill through the Legislature.
The bill was moved to the Assembly floor inactive file and will not move forward this year, his office told The Tribune on Wednesday.
“I am disappointed that SB 577 will not be advancing this year,” Laird said in his statement to The Tribune, noting the seven-month effort involved extensive and sometimes difficult dialogue with survivor advocacy organizations, public entities and other stakeholders.
But Addis and Adams were not convinced.
“Survivors weren’t included in this,” Addis said. “The idea that there’s balance here, I think is a misnomer.”
Laird said he is dedicated to making those conversations happen.
“Hopefully, the parties will continue the conversations to see if there is a path toward these goals in the next legislative session,” he said.
To Adams, that is the most important thing.
“We just need a voice,” she said. “We need a seat at the table.”
This story was originally published September 14, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
