in JCCP 5108 v. Superior Court CA2/5

Filed 10/30/26 Plaintiffs in JCCP 5108 v. Superior Court CA2/5 NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115. IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT DIVISION FIVE PLAINTIFFS IN JCCP 5108, IN B349706 RE NORTHERN CALIFORNIA CLERGY CASES, (Alameda County Super. Ct. No. Petitioners, HG20053992 (JCCP 5108)) v. ORDER MODIFYING THE SUPERIOR COURT OF OPINION AND DENYING ALAMEDA COUNTY, REHEARING Respondent, [NO CHANGE IN JUDGMENT] ALL INSTITUTIONAL DEFENDANTS IN JCCP 5108, Real Parties in Interest. It is ordered that the opinion filed on October 5, 2026, is modified to delete “presumed and” in line 16 of footnote 5.  The clerk of the court is directed to accept for filing petitioners’ request for judicial notice received on October 20, 2026. The request for judicial notice and petitioners’ petition for rehearing are denied. There is no change in judgment. ____________________________________________________________ BAKER, Acting P. J. MOOR, J. KIM (D.), J. 2 Filed 10/5/26 Plaintiffs in JCCP 5108 v. Superior Court CA2/5 (unmodified opinion) NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115. IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT DIVISION FIVE PLAINTIFFS IN JCCP 5108, IN RE B349706 NORTHERN CALIFORNIA CLERGY CASES, (Alameda County Super. Ct. No. Petitioners, HG20053992 (JCCP 5108)) v. THE SUPERIOR COURT OF ALAMEDA COUNTY, Respondent, ALL INSTITUTIONAL DEFENDANTS IN JCCP 5108, Real Parties in Interest. ORIGINAL PROCEEDINGS in mandate. S. Raj Chatterjee, Judge. Petition denied. Furtado, Jaspovice & Simons and Richard Simons; Manly, Stewart & Finaldi, Vince W. Finaldi, and Morgan Stewart; Esner, Chang, Boyer & Murphy, Stuart B. Esner, and Holly N. Boyer for Petitioners. No appearance for Respondent. Horvitz & Levy, Peder K. Batalden, and Melissa B. Whalen; Weintraub Tobin Chediak Coleman & Grodin, Paul E. Gaspari, and Daniel C. Zamora for Real Parties in Interest. 2  Proposition 51, a measure addressing multiple defendant tort liability that was approved by voters in 1986, prospectively eliminated joint and several liability for non-economic damages (e.g., damages for pain and suffering, inconvenience, and emotional distress). (See generally Evangelatos v. Superior Court (1988) 44 Cal.3d 1188, 1205-1206.) At our Supreme Court’s direction, we issue this opinion to decide whether Proposition 51’s elimination of joint and several liability applies to causes of action for childhood sexual abuse that occurred long ago (before Proposition 51’s enactment) but were statutorily revived by the Legislature in 2019—notwithstanding the customary statute of limitations that would otherwise bar such claims. I. BACKGROUND Petitioners are plaintiffs in Judicial Council Coordinated Proceeding (JCCP) 5108, captioned In re Northern California Clergy Cases. They are survivors of childhood sexual abuse who sued various religious entities and institutions in Northern California, and their claims have been joined in a coordinated proceeding in Alameda County Superior Court.1 Petitioners contend they suffered sexual abuse and some of that abuse occurred before Proposition 51 took effect on June 4, 1986. They did not sue within the then-existing statute of limitations period, but their claims were revived when the Legislature amended Code of Civil Procedure section 340.1 1 There are two similar coordinated proceedings: JCCP 5101 coordinates clergy cases filed in Los Angeles and Orange Counties and JCCP 5105 coordinates clergy cases filed in San Diego County. This appellate district is the designated review court for all three JCCP coordinated proceedings. 3 decades after Proposition 51’s enactment.2 Pursuant to the amended statute, sexual abuse claims that “would otherwise be barred as of January 1, 2020, because the applicable statute of limitations, claim presentation deadline, or any other time limit” were allowed to proceed if they were brought within three years of January 1, 2020.3 (Former § 340.1, subd. (q), added by Stats. 2019, ch. 861, § 1, eff. Jan. 1, 2020.) By way of a motion in limine filed in April 2025, petitioners asked the JCCP 5108 trial court to find Proposition 51’s bar on joint and several liability for non-economic damages does not apply to any of their claims for sexual abuse that happened before June 4, 1986—on the theory that those claims “accrued” before Proposition 51’s enactment. The trial court held a hearing on petitioners’ motion in limine and denied the motion in an August 2025 order. The court found petitioners’ claims “accrued” or “re-accrued” for Proposition 51 purposes when the claims were statutorily revived in 2020, not when the alleged abuse occurred some decades earlier. Petitioners sought review of this ruling by filing a mandate petition in this court. We summarily denied the petition for review of an in limine ruling. Our Supreme Court, however, granted a petition for review and transferred the cause back to us with directions to issue an order to show cause why the relief 2 Undesignated statutory references that follow are to the Code of Civil Procedure. 3 Section 340.1 was amended in 2022 and again in 2023. Our citations to section 340.1 refer to the version of the statute as amended in 2019. 4 petitioners sought should not be granted. We issued the order, held oral argument, and now again deny the petition. II. DISCUSSION The trial court did not err in denying petitioners’ motion in limine. Their claims accrued, for purposes of Proposition 51 as explained in Evangelatos, supra, 44 Cal.3d 1188, when they were revived as of January 1, 2020. There are no reliance interests that counsel in favor of a contrary rule, the Legislature was aware of prevailing law (Proposition 51) when it revived the claims and said nothing to indicate then-prevailing law would not apply, the statutory revival is a necessary element for any prospect of liability on petitioners’ claims, and legislative history materials if anything indicate an expectation that revived claims would be subject to Proposition 51 just like claims for abuse brought within the otherwise applicable statute of limitations. A. Proposition 51 Before the voters approved Proposition 51 on June 3, 1986 (the measure took effect the following day), California followed the traditional common law rule that joint tortfeasors were jointly and severally liable for all damages suffered. Under that joint and several liability rule, “if a defendant was found to be at all negligent, regardless of how minimally, . . . he could be held responsible for the full damages sustained by the plaintiff, even if other concurrent tortfeasors had also been partially, or even primarily, responsible for the injury.” (Evangelatos, supra, 44 Cal.3d at 1196.) The voters approving Proposition 51 rejected this “deep pocket rule,” which “resulted in a system of inequity and injustice 5 that . . . threatened financial bankruptcy of local governments, other public agencies, private individuals and businesses and . . . resulted in higher prices for goods and services to the public and in higher taxes to the taxpayers.” (Civ. Code, § 1431.1.) Instead, and to “remedy these inequities,” Proposition 51 declared “defendants in tort actions shall be held financially liable in closer proportion to their degree of fault. To treat them differently is unfair and inequitable.” (Ibid.) In legal terms, Proposition 51 modified the traditional joint and several liability rule by retaining such liability only for economic damages while limiting non-economic damages to several but not joint liability (meaning that each defendant would be responsible only for the share of non-economic damages attributable to that defendant’s own fault). (Civ. Code, § 1431.2, subds. (a), (b)(2); Evangelatos, supra, 44 Cal.3d at 1192, 1198.) In later litigation concerning the effect of Proposition 51, our Supreme Court held the initiative applied only prospectively, that is, to claims accruing after its effective date. (Evangelatos, supra, 44 Cal.3d at 1193 [“we conclude that the Court of Appeal erred in ruling that Proposition 51 applies to causes of action which accrued before the measure’s effective date”].) In so holding, Evangelatos followed settled law that legislation applies prospectively in the absence of clear statutory language providing for retroactive application. (Id. at 1193-1194.) The Evangelatos court also explained that prospective application “[r]eflect[s] the common-sense notion that it may be unfair to change ‘the rules of the game’ in the middle of a contest” and upholds the reasonable expectations of those who reasonably relied upon existing legal doctrine “in conducting their legal affairs prior to the new enactment.” (Id. at 1194.) 6  B. Section 340.1 Section 340.1 was enacted in 1986 to extend the statute of limitations for civil childhood sexual abuse claims from one year to three years. (Shirk v. Vista Unified School Dist. (2007) 42 Cal.4th 201, 207; former § 340.1, added by Stats. 1986, ch. 914, § 1, 3165-3166.) The statute has thereafter been amended numerous times, often to further expand the limitations period or to revive childhood sexual abuse claims that were otherwise time- barred. (Shirk, supra, at 207-208.) As relevant for our purposes, the Legislature in 2019 amended subdivision (q) of the statute to create a three-year window in which victims of childhood sexual abuse may bring time-barred claims: “Notwithstanding any other provision of law, any claim for damages described in paragraphs (1) through (3), inclusive, of subdivision (a) that has not been litigated to finality and that would otherwise be barred as of January 1, 2020, because the applicable statute of limitations, claim presentation deadline, or any other time limit had expired, is revived, and these claims may be commenced within three years of January 1, 2020. A plaintiff shall have the later of the three-year time period under this subdivision or the time period under subdivision (a) as amended by the act that added this subdivision.” (§ 340.1, subd. (q), as amended by Assem. Bill No. 218 (AB 218), Stats. 2019, ch. 861, § 1, eff. Jan. 1, 2020.) In addition to creating this three-year revival window, AB 218 more generally extended the statute of limitations for childhood sexual assault to 22 years after a plaintiff reaches the age of majority. AB 218 also made treble damages available against any defendant found to have covered up the sexual assault of a minor. (§ 340.1, subds. (a), (b).) A legislative 7 committee report prepared in connection with AB 218 explained “[i]t often takes decades before victims recognize what was done to them as abuse, realize how they have been harmed by the abuse, or simply find the strength to come forward” (Assem. Com. on Judiciary, Analysis of Assem. Bill No. 218 (2019-2020 Reg. Sess.) as introduced Jan. 16, 2019, p. 4) and opined the statutory amendment would “allow more victims of childhood sexual assault to be compensated for their injuries and[ ] to help prevent future assaults by raising the costs for this abuse” (id. at p. 3). C. Proposition 51 and Accrual of Sexual Abuse Claims The question we confront is this: for a statutorily revived claim of childhood sexual abuse, does liability arise and a claim “accrue” within the meaning of Proposition 51 and Evangelatos at the time of the abuse or when the time-barred claim is revived? That question has not been directly answered by the appellate courts. Reviewing courts have instead only addressed questions of accrual for revived childhood sexual abuse claims in the separate context of government claims presentation deadlines. (Rubenstein v. Doe No. 1 (2017) 3 Cal.5th 903, 905; Shirk, supra, 42 Cal.4th at 205.) Shirk and Rubenstein do not resolve the issue we must decide because our high court has cautioned that “a cause of action may be viewed in the eyes of the law as ‘accruing’ for different purposes on different dates, depending on the purpose for which the accrual determination is being sought.” (Buttram v. Owens-Corning Fiberglas Corp. (1997) 16 Cal.4th 520, 530.) Buttram explains, for instance, that in personal injury cases some courts invoke a relatively early accrual date when determining whether insurance coverage is triggered even though, for statute of limitations purposes, a personal injury 8 cause of action does not accrue until the plaintiff discovers or reasonably should have discovered he or she has a compensable injury. (Ibid.) The facts of Buttram, which also involved a dispute about Proposition 51’s applicability, illustrate why the concept of accrual depends on context. In that case, the plaintiff was exposed to asbestos from 1964 to 1968. (Buttram, supra, 16 Cal.4th at 525.) Testimony established that cancer cells in the plaintiff’s body probably started forming by 1984, but the plaintiff was not diagnosed with asbestos-related cancer until 1991. (Id. at 524-526.) To determine whether the plaintiff’s cause of action accrued for purposes of Proposition 51 (i.e., whether it accrued before the initiative’s effective date), Buttram looked to Evangelatos, supra, 44 Cal.3d 1188 and the reasons the Evangelatos court gave for holding Proposition 51 applies only prospectively. (Buttram, supra, at 531.) Evangelatos grounded its holding in principles of reasonable reliance and settled expectations that have figured in numerous judicial decisions considering whether tort reform legislation should apply prospectively or retroactively. (Evangelatos, supra, 44 Cal.3d at 1194.) These decisions, Evangelatos observes, “[r]eflect[ ] the common-sense notion that it may be unfair to change ‘the rules of the game’ in the middle of a contest” by “substantially modif[ying] a legal doctrine on which many persons may have reasonably relied in conducting their legal affairs prior to the new enactment.” (Ibid; see also id. at 1215 [“[P]laintiffs whose causes of action arose long before Proposition 51 was enacted will often have reasonably relied on the preexisting joint and several liability doctrine in deciding which potential tortfeasors to sue and which not to sue”].) The 9 Evangelatos court additionally explained that applying Proposition 51 retroactively also would “defeat the reasonable expectations of parties who entered into settlement agreements in reliance on the preexisting joint and several liability rule.” (Id. at 1216.) Drawing on this reasoning, the Supreme Court in Buttram concluded a claim for damages arising from a latent disease accrues, for purposes of determining whether Proposition 51 applies, at the time of diagnosis or at the time a plaintiff discovers the disease, whichever is earlier. (Buttram, supra, 16 Cal.4th at 540.) D. Claims Revived by AB 218 Are Subject to the Non- Economic Damages Limitations of Proposition 51 Petitioners believe we need not delve into the reasoning of Evangelatos and Buttram in this case because the text of section 340.1 establishes Proposition 51’s elimination of joint and several liability for non-economic damages does not apply to their claims. As they put it (with some help from the italics typeface): “By its express terms, the Legislature intended AB 218 to revive ‘any claim[ ] for damages’ without limitation and therefore did not intend to exclude joint and several noneconomic damages based on application of Proposition 51.” If only it were so simple. The problem with petitioners’ argument is twofold. First, the “any” is in the wrong place for petitioners’ argument to work. The Legislature’s focus in AB 218 was on reviving unknown, possible claims for sexual abuse, which explains why it used the term “any” in the indefinite or indeterminate sense (meaning any claims that might be filed pursuant to the provisions of the amended statute), not any and all forms of damages that might be recovered for these revived claims—as would be the case if the 10 statute instead read “claim for any damages.” Second, and more fundamentally, joint and several liability is not a type of damages—notwithstanding the shoehorning attempted by petitioners’ formulation. Joint and several liability is a method of apportioning damages (of any proper kind) among multiple defendants, and the text of section 340.1 alone cannot be said to have expressed a preference for one method of apportionment or another merely by referring to “any claim for damages.”4 Instead of looking to the plain text of section 340.1 for an answer that will never come, we believe the principles articulated in Evangelatos and applied in Buttram provide the appropriate guidance. Under those principles, a claim for childhood sexual assault brought pursuant to the 2019 amendment to section 340.1, subdivision (q) accrued for purposes of Proposition 51 and Evangelatos when the claim was revived on January 1, 2020. By then, petitioners had no reason to rely on pre-1986 law in deciding who to sue or not to sue. And until petitioners’ claims were then revived, defendants had no reason to calculate or plan for any potential liability, to contemplate cross-claims or 4 Not only does the text of section 340.1 make no reference to Proposition 51 or joint and several liability, it does expressly add a treble damages remedy for victims who prove their sexual assault “was as the result of a cover up.” (§ 340.1, subd. (b)(1).) That specific reference indicates the Legislature could have, and surely would have, spoken more directly to the question before us if it had intended its amendment of the statute to answer the question. (See, e.g., Rubenstein, supra, 3 Cal.5th at 907 [“Had the Legislature intended to also revive in [section 340.1,] subdivision (c) the claim presentation deadline under the government claims statute, it could have easily said so. It did not”].) 11 equitable indemnity actions against co-tortfeasors, or to settle claims that had long become stale.5 Also relevant is the context in which AB 218 was enacted. At the time of AB 218’s enactment, Proposition 51 and Evangelatos had been the law in California for over three decades. “When a statute is enacted against a ‘legal backdrop,’ we assume the background legal rules continue to apply absent a ‘definitive indication’ that the Legislature intended to displace them. [Citation.]” (Hohenshelt v. Superior Court (2025) 18 Cal.5th 310, 335.) Section 340.1, as we have seen, says nothing about displacing Proposition 51’s elimination of joint and several 5 That petitioners did not reasonably rely on pre-1986 law is further evidenced to some degree by the litigation history of revived childhood sexual assault claims, both in this coordination action and in past coordination actions. This coordination proceeding was created in 2020, but it was not until 2025 that petitioners suggested pre-1986 law regarding joint and several liability might apply. And that was a novel position. Clergy Cases III (JCCP 4359) (Clergy III) coordinated childhood sexual assault cases filed against various Northern California dioceses under the 2002 amendment to section 340.1, which revived claims time-barred as of January 1, 2003. The approved set of jury instructions included CACI 406, which incorporates Proposition 51’s several-only liability on non-economic damages. Petitioners’ liaison counsel in this case, who was also petitioners’ liaison counsel in Clergy III, acknowledges Proposition 51’s applicability to the revived claims was presumed and not litigated in Clergy III. The same is true for Clergy Cases I (JCCP 4286), which coordinated 2003 revival claims against the Los Angeles Archdiocese and Orange diocese and Clergy Cases II (JCCP 4297), which coordinated similar claims against the San Diego and San Bernardino dioceses. 12 liability for non-economic damages, and the Legislature is appropriately understood to have revived petitioners’ claims subject to the settled Proposition 51 legal backdrop. Petitioners believe that is incorrect only because they attribute a retrospective, counterfactual purpose to AB 218. In their words, they believe the Legislature enacting AB 218 had an “intent to place victims of childhood sexual abuse in the same position they would have been in if their claims had not been time-barred to begin with.” That proves far too much and cannot be right. The Legislature undoubtedly intended to give childhood sexual abuse survivors a chance to pursue claims they may have understandably been reluctant to pursue, or could not pursue, when they were younger. But we see no persuasive evidence of a legislative intent to require the revived claims to proceed as if the law were trapped in 1986 amber. Petitioners cannot seriously contend, for instance, that pattern jury instructions, rules of evidence, and rules of court as they existed in 1986 govern litigation of their revived claims. Yet there is no principled reason why that should not be so were we to accept petitioners’ back-in-the-same-position argument about what AB 218 was meant to achieve. Insofar as they are necessary to consider, AB 218’s legislative history materials confirm the Legislature did not contemplate revived claims would be litigated outside the non- economic damages constraints of Proposition 51. Committee materials observe AB 218 “[f]irst and foremost . . . extend[ed] the statute of limitations for bringing an action for recovery of damages . . . by 14 years—from 26 years of age to 40 years of age—and revive[d], for just three years, any action for childhood sexual assault that may have expired due to the existing statute 13 of limitations.” (Assem. Com. on Judiciary, Analysis of Assem. Bill No. 218 (2019-2020 Reg. Sess.) as introduced Jan. 16, 2019, p. 2.) This reveals a primary aim of enabling victims of childhood sexual abuse to bring claims for damages well into adulthood, and the revival provision helps extend that same consideration to victims who were assaulted as children years or decades ago even though the statutes of limitation would otherwise bar such abuse claims. There is no indication the Legislature contemplated these two groups of abuse survivors—those who bring claims under the extended statute of limitations and those who bring revived claims—would litigate under different rules, or that one group would be entitled to a greater prospect of recovery than the other, yet that would be the case if we accepted petitioners’ position in this appeal.6 In addition, and in response to opposition from defendants and insurers who were concerned about the costs of defending and settling claims brought under AB 218, proponents of the bill emphasized it did not change a plaintiff’s burden of proof, eliminate or alter any defenses that might be available to defendants, or affect the judge and jury’s ability to determine the amount of damages. (See Assem. Com. on Judiciary, Analysis of Assem. Bill No. 218 (2019-2020 Reg. Sess.) as introduced Jan. 16, 2019, p. 11 [“[T]he elimination of the statute of limitations and the revival of actions against perpetrators or third parties only assures that claims can be heard on their merits. Any other 6 The only group of victims that might be entitled to greater damages are those whose sexual assaults happened as the result of a cover up. (§ 340.1, subd. (b)(1).) But, critically, that is because the Legislature enacted language that clearly says just that. 14 applicable defense would not be affected, and plaintiffs would still have to prove all the elements of their case”]; Assem. Com. on Judiciary, Mandatory Information Worksheet on Assem. Bill No. 218 (2019-2020 Reg. Sess.) p. 5 [the bill “does not change the burden of proof or ability of the judge and jury to decide the amount of damages awarded”].) Comparative fault is an affirmative defense (Phipps v. Copeland Corp. LLC (2021) 64 Cal.App.5th 319, 332) inconsistent with joint and several liability, and by indicating “applicable defense[s]” would continue to apply, the legislative history of AB 218 if anything evinces an expectation that Proposition 51 would apply to revived claims such that the defense and insurer cost protestations were overblown. Moreover, the assurances in committee reports that nothing other than the statute of limitations (and perhaps some limited availability of treble damages) would be affected by AB 218 would have been hollow—misleading even—had the Legislature intended to bring back joint and several liability for non-economic damages on revived claims. The bottom line is that if the Legislature had intended to reinvigorate an erstwhile “unfair and inequitable” damages regime that voters long ago jettisoned in order to provide for a maximalist damages recovery scenario, we do not believe the Legislature would have accomplished that intent so obliquely and with so little fanfare. Instead, we believe the Legislature, aware of law that had been settled for decades, revived childhood sexual abuse claims for damages for a limited three-year window subject to otherwise prevailing law, including Proposition 51’s limits on non-economic damages (but not economic damages, which can still be apportioned on a joint and several basis). We therefore hold the trial court correctly concluded that liability for claims 15 revived under section 340.1, subdivision (q) is several but not joint pursuant to the terms of Proposition 51. DISPOSITION The petition for writ of mandate is denied. In the interests of justice, all parties shall bear their own costs. NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS BAKER, Acting P. J. We concur: MOOR, J. KIM (D.), J. 16