CVA Litigation Update: New Judges to Oversee CVA Matters

A recent development regarding Child Victims Act ("CVA") litigation in New York City will have a significant impact on how these cases are managed by the court and help ensure that the backlog of cases proceed more expeditiously going forward.  

Deputy Chief Administrative Judge Deborah Kaplan—who has been overseeing all pretrial matters relating to CVA cases in the five boroughs since the retirement of former Justice George J. Silver in September 2021—held a conference last week with members of the CVA Liaison Steering Committee to discuss the management of the CVA cases. There had been many complaints about the CVA case backlog, as well as concerns about having one Judge manage such a heavy docket and questions as to why additional judges could not be called on to assist. Since her selection in September, Judge Kaplan had been fairly silent as to any administrative changes, but after meeting first with the plaintiff and defense CVA liaisons, the joint conference attempted to address these concerns. A significant development from the conference was the announcement that going forward Justice Laurence Love and Justice Alexander Tisch will be jointly administering the CVA cases pending in the five boroughs.

Justice Kaplan will continue to be involved and retain supervisory authority over the New York City CVA cases, but her day-to-day role will be greatly diminished. Indeed, we learned that she was recently tasked with also administering NRA related litigation, another time-consuming responsibility. The assignment of two new judges to manage the CVA cases comes at a time when these cases—which number in the thousands—have been significantly backed up and delayed in the court system, with motions filed more than a year ago still waiting for determination by the court. Justice Kaplan advised that an order appointing Justices Love and Tisch will be issued by the court and filed in each CVA matter via the court’s e-filing system. We began to see such appointments e-filed last week. Both judges were present at the conference and are eager to be of service.

At the recent meeting Justice Kaplan also announced that the court was instituting another measure to help resolve the very large caseload of CVA matters. The court is in the process of appointing and training designated mediators that have a background in resolving trauma related claims to mediate CVA cases. While it is not yet entirely clear how the mediation process will work and how cases will be designated for mediation, Justice Kaplan said that the court is developing a method to identify CVA matters amenable to early resolution through mediation and to establish a settlement track for those matters. A process for mediation has always been an “action item” on the committee agenda, so we are pleased to see the court giving it the attention it deserves. We hope the program will be robust and will facilitate settlement of cases. No timetable was set, however, as to when the program may begin.