Filed 10/5/26 Plaintiffs in JCCP 5108 v. Superior Court CA2/5
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS
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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.)
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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.
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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