NYS Court of Appeals dismisses lawsuit filed under Child Victims Act

ALBANY — New York’s top court has dismissed a lawsuit filed under the landmark Child Victims Act, saying the alleged victim filed a case that was far too vague, lacking enough details about places and people to move ahead.

The Court of Appeals, in a 7-0 decision, dismissed the claim against the state by Chi Bartram Wright.

It wasn’t immediately clear whether the Wright decision will prove to be an outlier among the thousands of ongoing Child Victims Act lawsuits because it was so vague, or whether the legal requirement for details about alleged abuses will eventually impact other cases.

Wright had alleged he "was raped and sexually abused as a child by numerous men in multiple incidents between 1986 and 1990" at "The Egg," the Performing Arts Center at the Empire State Plaza in Albany, according to court documents.

The Court of Appeals said that Wright provided only generalities about alleged abusers, locations and time frames and that his claims were "too spare" to effectively impose liability on the state. The Court of Claims law, which guides lawsuits filed against the state, requires some specificity about incidents which Wright failed to meet, the high court said.

Advocates and some law firms have argued the Court of Claims law is being invoked to try to dismiss CVA lawsuits brought against the state. They have noted the law doesn’t apply to private institutions and schools — which effectively means it is much harder to sue the state and win than, say, a school district.

Wright filed his lawsuit in 2021, alleging the abuses occurred when he was between age 12 and 15. In news stories, he has said his mother worked at an office at the performing arts center and the incidents occurred in the bathrooms.

According to court documents, he alleged the state was liable for negligent hiring, retention, and supervision of its employees and failure to properly supervise and provide security at the state-owned premises.

The case first went to the Court of Claims, which dismissed the lawsuit based on insufficient details. But the mid-level state court, the Appellate Division, had reinstated the lawsuit, saying in cases of alleged sexual abuse against minors, dates and details are sometimes approximate and can’t be exactly recalled. The Appellate Division found the "four-year time frame" Wright alleged was sufficient.

But the top court sharply disagreed.

"The claim lacks critical information about the abusers. It alleges that the perpetrators included teachers, coaches, counselors, and perhaps other employees of the state, but it does not explain whether those employees were Wright’s teachers, coaches, and counselors, or why, as a child, he was in their company multiple times between 1986 and 1990," Judge Caitlin Halligan wrote for the court.

"The claim also alleges that members of the public were responsible for some of the abuse he suffered, but it does not explain why Wright came into contact with those persons as a child, the context in which adult supervision of any particular activity allegedly should have been provided, or the extent to which the state bore responsibility for Wright’s contact with the abusers," Halligan wrote.

"Although we recognize the difficulties attendant to recollecting the details of any abuse that might have occurred decades ago ... the claim lacks the specificity (the law) demands, and so it must be dismissed."

Wright’s attorney didn’t immediately respond to a call for comment. The state Attorney General’s Office, which defends lawsuits against the state, declined to comment.

Some attorneys have accused the attorney general’s office of invoking the Court of Claims Act as a "technicality" for dismissing cases — many of which are still winding through the court system. According to news accounts, judges hearing CVA claims against the state haven’t ruled in a uniform way about specificity requirements, leaving open the possibility the Court of Appeals could see other cases differently than Wright's.

By Yancey Roy

yancey.roy@newsday.com@yanceyroy