In Massachusetts, the most a court can make a charity pay for most kinds of harm is $20,000. The figure was written into law in 1971 and has been raised once since, only for hospitals.
In September 2026 the attorney general's report on three Catholic dioceses identified 275 clergy accused of abusing 944 children over seven decades. Three cases were sent to prosecutors; one led to a charge.
Seven years of investigation. One charge. And a civil limit written in 1971.
The report describes how: priests returned to parishes after treatment without real supervision, and some were moved without the new parish being told why. Hiding explains why this took decades to come out. It does not explain why, now that it is out, almost none of it reaches a courtroom.
The attorney general gave three reasons only three cases could be referred: some conduct was not a crime at the time, the time limit for prosecution had run out for much of the rest, and many of the people involved had died. Criminal law looks for one person to punish. The second door is a lawsuit against the institution.
In law, a diocese counts as a charity, so the most a court can award against it is $20,000. Survivors usually pay a lawyer a third of what they win — under $7,000 for a case that can take years — and the costs of preparing such a case can exceed $20,000 on their own. Lawyers say the client keeps $10,000 or less. And $20,000 in 1971 is worth more than $150,000 in 2026 dollars.
In 2003 the Archdiocese of Boston agreed to pay $85 million to more than 500 survivors — $80,000 to $300,000 each. Its cardinal and bishops had been sued personally, and a person has no cap; according to reporting at the time it agreed not to rely on the cap. So the cap sets the most an institution can be forced to pay, not what survivors receive. Two more rules block the personal route today: abuse before 1971 falls under the older full immunity, and the 2014 law reopened old claims against institutions and supervisors only for abuse after 2014.
Lift or index the cap. It covers every charity in the state, from a food bank to a youth league; the hospitals that pushed it argue insurance would cost more. The attorney general proposes lifting it only for child sexual abuse claims, as New Jersey did in 2006 for failures to supervise. Even then, most abuse in the report predates 2014, so time limits close the door first.
Reopen expired claims. New York's 2019 window brought about 11,000 lawsuits; six dioceses filed for bankruptcy; Rockville Centre settled for $323 million among 600+ survivors. Price: bankruptcy freezes and pools every case — no trial, files never made public in court, payouts by formula.
Compensation funds. Pennsylvania's dioceses paid $84 million through their own funds; Australia's national scheme caps payments at A$150,000; Ireland's redress board paid about €1.5 billion. Price: someone other than a court decides — taking the money meant waiving suits in Pennsylvania, institutions may decline to join in Australia, and in Ireland taxpayers paid about five-sixths.
The question is not only who is to blame. It is who sets the price of a harm that happened decades ago: a jury, a bankruptcy judge, a fund run by the institution or the state — or a number written in 1971.
Which of these do you choose — and who pays for it?