In 2020, plaintiff filed a complaint against defendant Roselle Board of Education, alleging violations of the New Jersey Child Sex Abuse Act, N.J.S.A. 2A:61B-1, negligence, intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligent infliction of emotional distress, and sought compensatory damages. Plaintiff alleged he was sexually abused on two occasions in 2004 and 2005 by a middle school math teacher. He did not seek any treatment or counselling through the years or incur any medical expenses.
On leave to appeal, the court affirmed the trial court's order granting defendant summary judgment because plaintiff could not establish he incurred the $3,600 monetary threshold of medical expenses to seek relief under the Tort Claims Act (TCA), N.J.S.A. 59:9-2(d). C.W. v. Roselle Bd. of Educ., 474 N.J. Super. 644, 653 (App. Div. 2023). Although plaintiff was barred from seeking pain and suffering damages, the court advised he was "not foreclosed from other available damages under the statute." Ibid.
Back before the trial court, plaintiff conceded he was not seeking economic damages but instead non-economic damages for disability, impairment and loss of enjoyment of life. The trial court again granted defendant summary judgment, finding the claimed damages were part of pain and suffering within the TCA and since plaintiff could not meet the monetary threshold, he could not pursue those damages.
While plaintiff's second appeal was pending, the Legislature amended the TCA in March 2025 to eliminate the verbal and monetary thresholds in sexual abuse cases. See N.J.S.A. 59:2-1.3(a)(2); N.J.S.A. 59:9-2(d). The legislation states the threshold amendment "shall take effect immediately." P.L. 2025, c. 29. Plaintiff submitted a supplemental merits brief asserting the amended TCA applied to his case under the time-of-decision rule as the matter was pending appeal at the time of its enactment, or alternatively, the amendment should apply retroactively to his claims.
The court determined neither argument was applicable to plaintiff's circumstances. The time-of-decision rule is only meant to apply when the Legislature intended for retroactive application. In addition, the parties, trial court and this court had relied on the longstanding statute and fifty years of decisional law regarding the monetary threshold for medical expenses as a requisite for recovering damages against a public entity during the five years of this litigation.
As to retroactivity, there was no express language that the Legislature intended its modification to be retroactive to pending cases and "[s]ettled rules of statutory construction favor prospective rather than retroactive application of new legislation" to avoid unfair outcomes. Pisack v. B & C Towing, Inc., 240 N.J. 360, 370 (2020) (quoting James v. N.J. Mfrs. Ins., 216 N.J. 552, 563 (2014)). Nor was there any indication that the amendment was curative.
After concluding the amendment was not retroactive and, therefore, not applicable to plaintiff's claims, the court affirmed the summary judgment order, declining to depart from the well-established law that plaintiff's claims of post-traumatic stress disorder and severe depression are considered as pain and suffering damages and fall within the limitations under N.J.S.A. 59:9-2(d). Since plaintiff could not meet the monetary threshold under the then-existing TCA, summary judgment was warranted.