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Yes. A private school, a church, a camp or a youth organization has no governmental immunity. You can sue it in Texas for its own negligence under ordinary Texas law. That is the difference between your case and a case against a public school district. There is a statute that can cap what a charitable organization pays. Whether that cap applies to your case is what most of these cases turn on. Schiffer Law Firm in Houston represents survivors and families in these cases across Texas.
The step that cannot wait is the organization’s file. Personnel and volunteer records, background checks, prior complaints and what was done with them, and the policy manual are the evidence. The organization holds all of it, and you are entitled to see it. Call 713-521-0059 before a file is cleaned out or an email account is closed.
Your claim is about what the organization did, not that the organization committed the abuse. It usually takes one of three forms.
Negligent hiring and negligent recommendation. The Texas Supreme Court addressed this in Golden Spread Council, Inc. No. 562 of Boy Scouts of America v. Akins, 926 S.W.2d 287 (Tex. 1996). The court held that “if GSC knew or should have known that Estes was peculiarly likely to molest boys, it had a duty not to recommend him as a scoutmaster.” The duty came from the council’s own act of recommending him, combined with what it had been told. The national organization, which knew nothing about him and did not select him, owed no duty. The court also said it imposed no other duty on the council, and in particular no duty to investigate him on its own. That is the line your case is built around. Liability attaches to the entity that knew something and placed the person anyway.
Negligent supervision and negligent retention. What the organization did once it received a complaint. Whether it looked into it. Whether it separated the person from children. Whether it moved him somewhere else.
Premises and program safety. Two-adult rules, sleeping arrangements, transportation policies, background check practices, and whether the organization followed its own written rules.
The organization’s duty is the same. Camps, youth groups and boarding programs put children together overnight, in cabins, on buses and in unsupervised hours, and children abuse other children in that space. A program that takes custody of children has to supervise them with that risk in mind and has to act when a child, a parent or a staff member reports something. What it knew about the child who did it, what its rules required, and what it did the day it first heard are the questions you will need answered. The age of the child who committed the abuse can affect the claim against that child’s family. It does not change what the organization owed yours.
Sometimes, and the answer is decided on the facts. Chapter 84 of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code, the Charitable Immunity and Liability Act, caps the liability of a qualifying charitable organization. Churches, religious organizations, educational organizations and youth sports organizations exempt under Section 501(c)(3) or 501(c)(4) generally qualify. One qualification is worth checking early. Section 84.003 reaches a private primary or secondary school only if the school is accredited by a member association of the Texas Private School Accreditation Commission. An unaccredited private school may fall outside the chapter, and outside its caps.
The caps are real. Section 84.006 limits a non-hospital charitable organization’s liability to $500,000 for each person and $1,000,000 for each single occurrence of bodily injury or death, and $100,000 for each single occurrence of property damage. Section 84.005 applies the same limits to a suit against an employee acting in the course and scope of employment. Section 84.004 goes further for unpaid volunteers and gives them immunity rather than a cap.
Section 84.007(a) is the provision that decides most of these cases. It provides: “This chapter does not apply to an act or omission that is intentional, wilfully negligent, or done with conscious indifference or reckless disregard for the safety of others.” The abuse itself is intentional, so the abuser is outside the Act. Whether the cap protects the organization in your case turns on its own conduct in hiring, supervising or retaining that person. Ordinary negligence is capped. Conscious indifference or reckless disregard for children’s safety is not.
An organization that ignored a complaint, that had been told about this particular person, that moved him rather than removed him, or that never ran the background check its own policy required, is in the territory Section 84.007(a) describes. That is what your case is built to prove. Do not treat the cap as a foregone conclusion, and do not assume it away either.
There is a second exception. Section 84.007(g) provides that the caps do not apply to a charitable organization that does not carry liability insurance in the amounts the section specifies. An underinsured organization has no cap. Section 84.007(c) also removes the protection from an organization formed substantially to limit its liability under the chapter.
Yes. Section 84.0066, added in 2019, gives a charitable organization good-faith immunity for disclosing to a person’s current or prospective employer an allegation it reasonably believes to be true that the person engaged in sexual misconduct, sexually abused someone, sexually harassed someone or committed one of the listed offenses. An organization that quietly let someone move on to the next church, school or camp cannot say the law prevented it from speaking.
In Texas, every adult does. Section 261.101(a) of the Family Code requires a person with reasonable cause to believe a child has been abused, by any person, to report it immediately, and professionals to report within 24 hours under Section 261.101(b). A program that handled a complaint only internally, and never made the report, did not comply. In your civil case, that failure is often the clearest evidence of what the organization knew.
Usually not. Title IX reaches only an education program or activity that receives federal financial assistance. Most private K-12 schools, churches and camps receive none, which puts them outside it. Most private universities do receive it, which puts them inside. Whether your institution takes federal money is a question we check rather than assume. Our page on sexual assault at college covers the Title IX side.
For conduct against a child that violates the offenses listed in Section 16.0045(a) of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code, including sexual assault of a child, aggravated sexual assault of a child, continuous sexual abuse and indecency with a child, Texas gives thirty years from accrual. That long period applies to your state-law claims. It does not apply to federal claims, which borrow a two-year period. Where a case involves both, the two deadlines run at different speeds. Our page on how long you have to sue goes through it.
Every statute and case linked above was read at its primary source. Texas statutes change every legislative session and case law is constantly changing.
This page is general information about Texas law. It is not legal advice about your situation, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship.
Personnel and volunteer files. Background check records and who ran them. Prior complaints and the written response to each. Internal correspondence about the person. Records of a transfer or a resignation and how it was described. Insurance files. Policy manuals, and evidence about whether the policies were followed. Institutions keep records, and thirty years is not long enough for all of them to disappear. We know where to ask.
We start with what the organization knew and when, because that is what decides both your claim and the cap. Then we identify every responsible party: the local organization, a parent body or national organization that set the screening rules and knew what the local one knew, and the owner of the property where it happened.
Schiffer Law Firm is a Houston personal injury firm with 50 plus years of combined experience representing injured people and survivors across Texas.
If you are a parent, an advocate or a counselor asking on someone’s behalf, you are welcome to call with a general question. We will not ask you for their name.
There is no charge to talk, and no attorney’s fee unless there is a recovery.
Call 713-521-0059.
Not by itself. Section 84.007(a) provides that the chapter does not apply to an act or omission that is intentional, wilfully negligent, or done with conscious indifference or reckless disregard for the safety of others, and Section 84.007(g) removes the caps from an organization without the required liability insurance. Whether the cap applies is decided on the organization's conduct and its insurance.
Section 84.006 limits a non-hospital charitable organization to $500,000 for each person, $1,000,000 for each single occurrence of bodily injury or death, and $100,000 for each single occurrence of property damage. Section 84.005 applies the same limits to an employee, and Section 84.004 gives an unpaid volunteer immunity rather than a cap.
No. Section 84.003 reaches a private primary or secondary school only if it is accredited by a member association of the Texas Private School Accreditation Commission. An unaccredited school may fall outside the chapter.
The organization's duty to supervise and protect is the same. The claim is for what it knew about that child, what its rules required, and what it did when it first heard.
Usually not, unless it receives federal financial assistance. The claims here are ordinarily state-law claims about what the organization knew and did.
Thirty years from accrual for conduct against a child that violates the offenses listed in Section 16.0045(a). Federal claims run on a shorter, two-year period. Ask about your dates.