$65 Million Verdict for Child Sex Abuse Survivor Against Former Buffalo YMCA Counselor

The plaintiff, identified in court documents by the pseudonym LG 46, began attending programs at the YMCA Buffalo Niagara as a young child. She testified that James B. Jackson, a counselor at the facility, began grooming her when she was roughly seven or eight years old and continued to abuse her on an almost daily basis through age 15 -- a span of approximately seven years during the 1990s.

Decades later, New York's Child Victims Act opened a litigation window that had not previously existed, allowing survivors of childhood sexual abuse to sue regardless of how much time had passed. The plaintiff, then 37 years old, filed suit under the CVA in March 2020, naming Jackson as the defendant. A separate lawsuit against the YMCA Buffalo Niagara organization itself remained pending at the time of trial.

At trial in New York State Supreme Court in Erie County, attorney Amy C. Keller of Lipsitz Green Scime Cambria presented the plaintiff's case to a jury. The plaintiff testified about the scope of the abuse and the lasting harm it caused, including struggles with alcohol and difficulty forming trusting relationships in adulthood.

In October 2022, the jury returned a verdict of $65 million: $20 million for past pain and suffering, $20 million for future pain and suffering, and $25 million in punitive damages. At the time of the verdict, the award was reported as the largest known outcome in a Child Victims Act case in the Buffalo region.

The $65 million verdict was the third substantial CVA jury verdict Keller obtained in 2022 on behalf of survivors of childhood sexual abuse. No appeal or court-ordered reduction of the award appeared in publicly available records at the time of this writing.