When most people hear the words “church abuse lawsuit,” they think of the Catholic Church. That association makes sense. The hierarchy produced paper, and decades of litigation forced that paper into the public domain. In October 2024, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles agreed to pay $880 million to 1,353 survivors of clergy sexual abuse, the largest single Catholic diocese settlement in U.S. history. In February 2026, the Diocese of Camden agreed to a $180 million settlement with more than 300 survivors. The numbers are real, and the suffering they represent is real.

That said, sexual abuse and its institutional concealment are not unique to one faith tradition. They may occur in any setting where adults hold positions of trust over children. The legal tools that may hold a Catholic diocese accountable are the same tools, in their essential structure, that may hold a Southern Baptist conference, an LDS ward, a Kingdom Hall, a yeshiva, or an independent megachurch accountable. How those tools get applied changes from one tradition to the next, because the underlying organizations are built differently.

The Three Legal Theories That Cut Across Denominations

When a survivor sues a religious institution, the case usually rests on one or more of three civil liability theories.

“Respondeat superior” is a Latin legal doctrine meaning “let the master answer.” Respondeat superior is a form of vicarious liability that holds an employer responsible for the wrongful acts of an employee committed within the scope of employment. In clergy abuse cases, this theory often fails. Most courts have ruled that sexual abuse is not within the scope of a clergy member’s duties, which means the institution cannot automatically be held liable just because the abuser was on its payroll. A minority of courts apply a broader test asking whether the abuse was made possible by the authority the institution gave the abuser. Plaintiffs still plead it, but it is rarely the theory that wins.

Negligent hiring, retention, and supervision is the workhorse theory in this area of law. If the institution knew, or through reasonable diligence should have known, that a person the institution placed in a position of trust posed a risk to children, and failed to act on that knowledge, it may be held responsible. Courts in New York, Virginia, California, and many other states have allowed these claims to proceed against churches even after rejecting respondeat superior. This is the theory that has produced the largest survivor recoveries.

Agency theory comes into play when a local church or affiliate operates as an agent of a regional or national body that exercised meaningful control over its conduct. This is how plaintiffs may reach the bishop, the conference, or the national headquarters when the local entity does not have sufficient resources to compensate survivors.

These three theories may give survivors a path forward even when one of them is closed.

The Catholic Church as a Documented Baseline

The Catholic Church’s abuse crisis became the template for survivor litigation because the hierarchy produced paper. Bishops kept files. Dioceses kept records. Religious orders moved priests between assignments and documented the moves. When civil discovery opened those records, the pattern of institutional knowledge and cover-up became clear across diocese after diocese.

That is the structural feature that matters legally: hierarchy. It enabled the cover-ups, and it also produced the evidence that survivor attorneys have used to establish what the institution knew, when it knew it, and what it chose to do. The legal template is portable to other faiths. What changes is the evidence-gathering challenge, because other traditions are built differently.

The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) and the Database That Disappeared

In May 2022, Guidepost Solutions released a 288-page report on the Southern Baptist Convention confirming what survivor advocates had been saying for years. SBC leaders had maintained a private list of accused abusers with 703 entries, 409 of whom were believed to be SBC-affiliated, while publicly denying that the convention had a systemic problem.

Messengers at the SBC’s 2022 annual meeting voted overwhelmingly to create a public abuser database called Ministry Check. Survivors and advocates expected names to begin appearing within a year.

In February 2025, SBC Executive Committee President Jeff Iorg told reporters that the database was no longer a focus. Iorg said the convention would instead help churches access third-party databases and improve background checks. Tiffany Thigpen, a survivor advocate who had worked alongside SBC leaders for years pushing for reform, described the moment as “the end of an era.” An independent nonprofit called the Abuse Response Commission has since formed to continue reform work outside the SBC’s direct control.

The legal implication is straightforward. Decentralization is the SBC’s structural defense. Each local Baptist church is autonomous, and the convention has long argued that this limits its liability for what individual churches do. However, agency theory and negligent supervision claims have been used to reach the convention level where it exercised control or had knowledge it failed to act on.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) and the Helpline Litigation

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) operates an internal helpline that bishops are required to call when they learn of sexual abuse. The line is staffed by attorneys from the law firm Kirton McConkie. An August 2022 Associated Press investigation documented how the helpline had operated in practice, including in the case of Paul Adams, an Arizona man who confessed to his bishop in 2010 that he was sexually abusing his daughter. The bishop called the helpline and was advised by a church attorney not to report Adams to authorities. The abuse continued for years.

A civil case brought by Adams’s children against the LDS Church was dismissed by an Arizona trial court in 2023 on clergy-penitent privilege grounds. On July 30, 2025, the Arizona Court of Appeals revived the case, finding that a jury could reasonably conclude that Adams waived the privilege through his subsequent admissions during his excommunication proceeding, where he acknowledged the abuse in front of clergy and non-clergy members alike. The case is now headed back toward trial.

According to survivor advocacy reporting, the LDS Church has made payments in at least 27 sexual abuse cases as of 2025, with 15 disclosed settlements totaling approximately $50.95 million. In May 2025, the church agreed to settle more than 100 sexual abuse lawsuits consolidated in a California Judicial Council Coordination Proceeding.

The structural feature that plaintiffs are working with is the helpline itself. Every bishop who calls it creates a record at church headquarters. Civil discovery has begun to reach those records.

The Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Two-Witness Rule, and the Internal Database

The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society applies a “two-witness rule” to allegations of serious wrongdoing: two eyewitnesses must corroborate the allegation before elders take action. Sexual abuse rarely occurs in front of witnesses, which means the rule has, in practice, shielded abusers for decades.

The Watchtower has also maintained an internal database of accused abusers reported to contain more than 1,000 names, kept hidden from law enforcement and the public.

The civil litigation record reflects both. In 2015, a California jury imposed a $13.5 million verdict against Watchtower in the Jose Lopez case after the organization refused to turn over internal abuser records. In 2018, a Montana jury returned a $35 million verdict focused on the two-witness rule and elder reporting failures, though that verdict was reversed in January 2020 on clergy-penitent privilege grounds. A New York appeals court has upheld a $4,000-per-day contempt fine against Watchtower for refusing to produce internal documents in a separate case.

The records exist. The discovery battles over whether Watchtower must produce them have been among the most contested in modern survivor litigation.

Orthodox Jewish Institutions and Independent Evangelicals

Two settings survivor coverage often skips deserve their own discussion.

Yeshiva University High School in Manhattan has been the subject of civil litigation since 2012, with 31 former students alleging abuse by faculty rabbis dating to the 1970s. In Connecticut, Rabbi Daniel Greer was found civilly liable for $15 million in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages for abusing a male student at the Yeshiva of New Haven. The cultural concept of mesirah, which discourages reporting fellow Jews to secular authorities, is the structural barrier plaintiffs work around. The legal theory that may reach the institution is the same one that works elsewhere: negligent supervision of an adult who held a position of trust over children.

Independent evangelical and nondenominational churches present a different structural challenge. There is no diocese, no national hierarchy, no convention to reach. The plaintiff must establish liability at the level of the individual church, typically a 501(c)(3) corporation governed by elders or a board. Agency theory becomes harder to invoke. Negligent hiring and supervision claims against the local entity remain straightforward. The records are less centralized than in a Catholic diocese, but they exist: board minutes, hiring files, internal communications, and insurance records. Civil discovery can produce them.

Good. The research confirms there is a documented civil litigation record against Islamic institutions in the United States, including the Nur-Ul-Islam Academy settlement in Broward County, the Institute of Islamic Education case in Illinois, the Islamic Society of Tampa Bay Area lawsuit, and the $2.55 million judgment against Imam Zia ul-Haq Sheikh in Texas. Here is the paragraph, written to slot in after the Orthodox Jewish section and before the closing “What This May Mean” section:

Muslim Institutions

Mosques, Islamic schools, and affiliated organizations are not immune from the negligent supervision and negligent retention theories that apply to every other religious institution in the United States. Civil cases have been filed in multiple states.

In Florida, a lawsuit against the Islamic Society of Tampa Bay Area alleged that the mosque failed to act after being informed of abuse by a member, moving the accused individual into a different role rather than removing him or contacting law enforcement. A lawsuit in Broward County against the Nur-ul-Islam Academy and its associated mosque resulted in a confidential settlement after a teacher was found to have sexually abused at least three female students over several years. In Illinois, a civil suit against the Institute of Islamic Education in Elgin named its longtime director, Muhammad Abdullah Saleem, alleging abuse of students spanning decades. In Texas, Imam Zia ul-Haq Sheikh of the Islamic Center of Irving was ordered by a court to pay $2.55 million to a survivor following a civil judgment for sexual misconduct.

The structural challenge in Islamic institutional cases is the absence of a centralized hierarchy comparable to a Catholic diocese. Most mosques in the United States operate independently as nonprofit corporations, governed by their own boards. There is no national body with supervisory authority over individual congregations that plaintiffs can readily reach through agency theory. The claims that do work are the same ones that work against independent evangelical churches: negligent hiring, negligent retention, and negligent supervision of an individual who held a position of trust. The records exist at the local institutional level, including hiring files, board minutes, internal communications, and insurance policies, and civil discovery can reach them.

What This May Mean If This Happened to You

The legal architecture described here cuts across every faith tradition. A survivor of clergy sexual abuse in any of these settings may have options under civil law that exist regardless of what the denomination did or did not do internally. The institutional defendant matters because institutions carry insurance, hold recoverable assets, and keep records. The records, in particular, often produce the evidence that builds the case.

You do not need a criminal conviction against the abuser to bring a civil case. You do not need to have reported the abuse at the time it happened. You do not need to still belong to the faith tradition where the abuse occurred. The civil claim is yours.

How Constant Legal Group Can Help

Constant Legal Group has litigated against religious institutions across denominations and across the country. We handle Catholic, Southern Baptist, LDS, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Orthodox Jewish, and independent evangelical cases. We pursue the institutional defendants, not just the individuals.

Every consultation is free, confidential, and carries no obligation. There is no upfront cost. We only get paid if we recover compensation for you.

We are here to hear your story.

Call us at 855-906-2561

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Contact Constant Legal Group for a confidential evaluation specific to your circumstances. Case outcomes vary significantly based on the specific facts of each case, jurisdiction, and applicable law.