Op-Ed from The Coalition for Just & Compassionate Compensation
New York’s Failure to Fix Legal Loopholes Reveals Pattern of State-Sponsored Exploitation
Survivors of childhood sexual abuse are condemning the New York State Assembly, Governor Kathy Hochul, and Attorney General Letitia James for failing to fix a legal flaw that is now being weaponized to deny justice to hundreds of victims. After the Assembly adjourned without passing a Senate-backed bill to address a key defect in the Child Victims Act (CVA), advocates say the state’s posture has shifted from indifference to active exploitation.
“The State of New York is no longer just failing survivors — it’s exploiting them,” said Gary Greenberg, a survivor and founder of the Fighting for Children PAC. “From the courts to the Attorney General to the Governor’s office, survivors are being used for headlines, then discarded when it matters most.”
In March, the state’s highest court ruled that a CVA lawsuit could be dismissed because the survivor, abused as a child at the Empire State Plaza between 1986 and 1990, could not provide exact dates for the abuse. The court cited the pleading standards in the Court of Claims Act — a statute that the Legislature failed to update despite years of warning signs.
That ruling opened the door for the Attorney General’s office to seek mass dismissals of CVA and ASA cases involving state-run facilities, prisons, group homes, and schools. The office has already filed dozens of motions arguing that survivors must recall exact times, dates, and locations — regardless of how long ago the abuse occurred or how young the victim was.
“This is not about justice — it’s about legal technicalities being used to crush people who’ve already suffered more than enough,” said Steve Jimenez, a survivor and board member of the Coalition for Justice and Compassionate Compensation (CJCC). “The state is protecting its finances, its institutions, and its insurers — not its people. Albany had every opportunity to fix this, and instead it betrayed survivors again. That’s not failure — that’s a choice.”
In 2019, Insurance Circular Letter No. 11 directed insurers to cooperate fully with CVA cases. Yet five years later, DFS has done nothing to penalize insurance companies for dragging out claims, demanding unnecessary documentation, or refusing to pay survivors. Meanwhile, Governor Hochul — who has full authority over DFS and could have demanded action has remained silent.
“This is systemic,” said David Catalfamo, Executive Director of the CJCC. “The Attorney General fights survivors in court. DFS lets insurers stall them out. And the Governor ignores our pleas. That’s not bureaucracy — that’s exploitation.”
Survivors point to the following pattern of state-enabled obstruction:
- The Legislature, despite knowing for years of it infirmity, failed to amend the pleading standards the Court of Claims Act putting at risk hundreds of CVA claims and even more ASA claims
- The Attorney General’s Office has aggressively pursued dismissals based on hyper-technical pleading rules — even when survivors list multi-year time frames and identify abuse in state-run facilities.
- DFS has refused to enforce its own 2019 directive requiring insurers to cooperate with CVA claims in good faith.
- Governor Hochul has refused to intervene, speak out, or lead — even as her own administration’s legal team and agencies undermine the very laws she claimed to support.
“If the Governor doesn’t act now, she’ll be remembered for turning her back on survivors of child sex abuse – that’s not a legacy any governor wants,” Catalfamo said. “Survivors are watching — and are not going away.”
