Private and religious schools have the same duty to protect their students that public schools do. In some ways a case against a private school is simpler: there is no government claim process and no special protection for the school, and the school’s board, its administrators, and sometimes the church or religious order that runs it can all be held responsible.
Why the school is responsible
A private school is responsible for its own failures: hiring an employee without checking his background, keeping him after complaints, failing to supervise, failing to report, and hiding what it knew from parents. When a school is run by a diocese, a religious order, or a denomination, that organization is usually part of the case too, along with its own files and prior complaints. Clergy and religious institution claims.
One difference matters: California allows extra damages when an institution covered up abuse it knew about. A law signed in 2026 takes that away for public schools and other government agencies starting January 1, 2027. It still applies to private schools.
Boarding schools, military academies, and residential programs
Schools where students live on campus carry a heavier responsibility, because the school controls the child’s whole day and the adults who have access to dormitories, locker rooms, and off-hours activities. The Army and Navy Academy in Carlsbad, for example, settled a lawsuit in October 2018 for $1.75 million with a former cadet who said an academic administrator drugged and assaulted him on campus in 1999; the administrator was convicted in 2017 and sentenced to 48 years in prison. A jury awarded another former cadet $1.885 million in 2017 over assaults by a different employee in 2006.
Day schools
San Diego’s independent day schools have faced similar claims. Lawsuits filed in 2021 against Francis Parker School and three of its administrators said a teacher and coach groomed and abused students beginning when they were 13 and 14; the school fired him in 2015, and he died before a later allegation at another school could be fully investigated. A former student of The Bishop’s School in La Jolla sued the school and the Episcopal Diocese of San Diego in 2019, saying a teacher began a sexual relationship with him when he was 16. Those suits are allegations, not findings, but the pattern is familiar: a trusted teacher, a long period of grooming, and a school that is asked afterward what it knew.
Catholic schools and the diocesan bankruptcy
Claims against Catholic schools in San Diego County are affected by the Diocese of San Diego’s bankruptcy case, filed June 17, 2024, in which the bankruptcy court sets its own deadlines and procedures for abuse claims. Schools run by other denominations and religious orders generally are not in bankruptcy and are sued in the ordinary way. More on clergy and religious institution claims.
Is it too late?
Probably not. If the abuse happened before 2024, you can usually file until you turn 40, or within a few years of realizing as an adult that the abuse caused harm you are living with now (that window is five years today; a law signed in 2026 shortens it to three years starting January 1, 2027). If the abuse happened on or after January 1, 2024, there is no deadline at all. If a school or diocese is in bankruptcy, the bankruptcy court sets a separate claim deadline. More on deadlines.
Who may have a claim
Anyone abused as a student at a California private, parochial, independent, boarding, or military school by a teacher, coach, administrator, staff member, clergy member, or volunteer, at any time. If you signed something or got a tuition refund years ago, ask anyway; those papers may not bar a later claim.
Talk to us
Call 877-428-4544 any time. The conversation is private and free, cases are filed under a Doe name, and there is no attorney fee and no costs unless we recover.
Sources
This page is general information about California law as of October 2026, not legal advice about your situation. Cases described are drawn from court records and news reports and are not our cases.
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