1. Introduction

M.T. v Yeshiva Univ. arises from allegations that students at defendant Marsha Stern Talmudical Academy–Yeshiva University High School for Boys (YU High School) were subjected to sexual and physical abuse by administrators, teachers, and other employees from the 1950s through 1986. Plaintiffs sued Yeshiva University (YU), YU High School, the Estate of Norman Lamm, and Rabbi Robert Hirt, pleading negligence-based theories (negligent supervision, negligent retention, and negligent failure to provide a safe and secure environment).

The appeal presented two principal issues:

• Constitutional / preclusion issue: Whether defendants could defeat a Child Victims Act (CVA) revival action by asserting “vested rights” in final federal judgments that previously dismissed substantially similar claims as time-barred (Twersky I) and then as barred by res judicata (Twersky II).
• Pleading sufficiency issue (as to Hirt): Whether the complaint adequately alleged that Rabbi Robert Hirt had actual or constructive notice of abusers’ propensities to support negligence-based claims at the CPLR 3211(a)(7) stage.

The First Department affirmed the denial of dismissal, holding that defendants’ prior federal dismissals did not create a constitutionally protected “vested property right” that could invalidate the CVA’s revival mechanism as applied.

2. Summary of the Opinion

The court emphasized that the CVA (CPLR 214-g) expressly provides that a pre-CVA dismissal “on grounds that such previous action was time barred” cannot be used to dismiss a CVA revival action. Defendants attempted to recast that statutory command as unconstitutional—arguing “vested rights” in the finality of their federal judgments and invoking the Due Process Clauses and the Supremacy Clause. The First Department rejected the premise: judgments can be vehicles for vesting property rights, but a time-bar dismissal does not itself constitute a vested, constitutionally protected property interest.

3. Analysis

3.1 Precedents Cited (and How They Shaped the Result)

A. The “vested rights” line—what it protects, and what it does not

• McCullough v Virginia (172 US 102 [1898]) anchored the modern articulation of the doctrine: the legislature may not “take away rights which have been once vested by a judgment.” The First Department treated McCullough as illustrating a critical feature defendants glossed over—there was an underlying property entitlement (a tax refund) that became inviolable once reduced to judgment. The opinion uses McCullough to distinguish between (i) a judgment enforcing an underlying property right and (ii) a dismissal judgment whose only “value” is avoiding litigation.
• Pennsylvania v Wheeling & Belmont Bridge Co. (59 US 421 [1855]) was cited for the proposition that when a right (e.g., damages at law) passes into a money judgment, it moves beyond legislative reach. The court leveraged this to show why defendants’ analogy fails: defendants had no money judgment, no damages award, and no collectible res.
• Hodges v Snyder (261 US 600 [1923]) was invoked to reinforce that legislation cannot take away “private rights” vested by judgment—but again the emphasis is on “private rights” as something distinct from bare finality.
• Benjamin v Jacobson (124 F3d 162 [2d Cir 1997]) was cited for the well-settled point that a final money judgment creates a vested right (a protected property interest). The First Department used this to underscore the category limitation: the protected interest is the collectible monetary entitlement, not the abstract fact of having prevailed.
• 1256 Hertel Ave. Assoc., LLC v Calloway (761 F3d 252 [2d Cir 2014]) supported the idea that a judgment lien is protected property because it secures collection and is transferable. The court contrasted that with defendants’ dismissals, which have “no value to anyone except defendants” and are not “freely bought, sold, and assigned.”

B. Statutes of limitations, revival statutes, and the absence of “property” in a limitations defense

• Chase Sec. Corp. v Donaldson (325 US 304 [1945]) provided the central doctrinal permission slip: a legislature may extend or revive limitations periods—even after a claim is barred—without violating the Fourteenth Amendment, so long as no separate property title has vested by lapse of time.
• Campbell v Holt (115 US 620 [1885]) was cited for the blunt proposition that one does not have “property in the bar of the statute.” This undercut defendants’ attempt to constitutionalize repose via “vested rights.”
• Tanges v Heidelberg N. Am. (93 NY2d 48 [1999]) reinforced New York’s framing: expiration of the limitations period “does not extinguish the underlying right, but merely bars the remedy.” The opinion used this as conceptual glue—revival restores a remedy; it does not confiscate a vested property interest.
• Matter of World Trade Ctr. Lower Manhattan Disaster Site Litig. (30 NY3d 377 [2017] [Rivera, J., concurring]) was used to reject the notion that “the hope of avoiding litigation” is a vested property right under due process. The First Department echoed that view in characterizing defendants’ asserted interest as non-property.

C. Identifying “property” for due process purposes

• Phillips v Washington Legal Found. (524 US 156 [1998]) and Town of Castle Rock v Gonzalez (545 US 748 [2005]) supplied the analytic sequence: due process protects, but does not create, property interests; one must first identify an “independent source” (often state law) creating an entitlement. The court used these cases to spotlight defendants’ failure to identify any New York-law property interest associated with their dismissal judgments.

D. Plaut, separation of powers, and why defendants’ best analogy was “inapt”

• Plaut v Spendthrift Farm, Inc. (514 US 211 [1995]) was central to defendants’ rhetoric and to Luxford v Dalkon Shield Claimants Trust (978 F Supp 221 [D Md 1997]). The First Department held Plaut “inapt” because it was a federal separation-of-powers decision: Congress cannot command federal courts to reopen final judgments. Here, by contrast, a state revival statute governs state-court claims; it does not direct federal courts to reopen judgments.
• Mistretta v United States (488 US 361 [1989]) appeared as background support for the separation-of-powers frame animating Plaut, further highlighting why that framework did not transfer to the case.
• Luxford v Dalkon Shield Claimants Trust was explicitly rejected as unpersuasive. The court emphasized that Luxford relied on Plaut while acknowledging Plaut did not resolve the due process question—and, critically, the separation-of-powers concern central to Plaut was missing here.

E. Supremacy Clause arguments—what would have been required, and what was missing

• Cooper v Aaron (358 US 1 [1958]) and Brown v Board of Educ. (347 US 483 [1954]) were used as illustrations of true Supremacy Clause conflict—states cannot nullify federal constitutional commands or federal court orders enforcing them.
• McCulloch v Maryland (17 US 316 [1819]) supplied the classic preemption/conflict example: a state law cannot obstruct federal law.
• The court found no comparable conflict here: the CVA did not contradict federal constitutional law because defendants had no protected property interest; and the CVA did not conflict with any federal statute or rule.

F. Pleading standards in institutional abuse negligence claims (CPLR 3211)

• G.T. v Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn, N.Y. (211 AD3d 413 [1st Dept 2022]) and M.O. v Archdiocese of N.Y. (228 AD3d 583 [1st Dept 2024]) supported the proposition that allegations of open, long-running abuse can make notice plausible at the pleading stage.
• John Doe - 18126 v Young People's Chorus of N.Y. City (238 AD3d 633 [1st Dept 2025]) supplied the procedural safety valve: defendants can seek detail via a bill of particulars rather than dismissal.
• ARK265 Doe v Archdiocese of N.Y. (221 AD3d 422 [1st Dept 2023]) reinforced that, pre-answer, key information may be within the movant’s sole possession and control—counseling against demanding evidentiary particularity in the complaint.

3.2 Legal Reasoning

The court’s reasoning is best understood as a disciplined reclassification of defendants’ asserted “right.” Defendants framed their interest as a “vested right in the finality” of two federal judgments. The First Department re-framed the constitutional question: due process protects property interests; therefore, defendants had to identify an underlying property entitlement created by an independent source (typically state law), and then show it was “vested by a judgment” such that legislation could not disturb it.

The opinion then proceeds in three steps:

1. Eliminate the “limitations defense as property” theory. Citing Chase Sec. Corp. v Donaldson and Campbell v Holt, the court reaffirmed the orthodox rule: absent title to real or personal property obtained by lapse of time, a defendant has no constitutionally protected property interest in a statute-of-limitations bar.
2. Reject “judgment finality” as standalone property. Drawing on McCullough v Virginia and related cases, the court clarified that judgments can vest rights, but they do not automatically become “the right.” Defendants’ dismissals conferred no transferable, collectible entitlement (no money judgment, no lien, no title). What remained was a desire to avoid suit—characterized (with support from Matter of World Trade Ctr. Lower Manhattan Disaster Site Litig.) as non-property.
3. Dispose of Plaut/Supremacy Clause analogies. The court held Plaut v Spendthrift Farm, Inc. irrelevant because it polices federal separation of powers (Congress commanding federal courts to reopen judgments). With no protected property right and no conflict with federal law, defendants’ due process and Supremacy Clause theories collapsed.

On Rabbi Hirt’s CPLR 3211(a)(7) motion, the court applied a pleading-stage lens: plaintiffs alleged he knew or should have known of the dangerous propensities, and “condoned or covered them up,” in the context of abuse allegedly occurring “openly and over many decades.” Those allegations, the court held, suffice to provide notice of the claim, with further detail obtainable by bill of particulars.

3.3 Impact

1) Stabilizing CVA revival practice against “federal judgment finality” attacks. The decision fortifies CPLR 214-g’s express instruction that prior time-bar dismissals cannot defeat revival actions by attempting to constitutionalize those dismissals as “vested rights.” In practical terms, institutional defendants with prior limitations wins (even in federal court) face a narrower set of constitutional defenses: they must identify an actual property interest (e.g., a money judgment, lien, or vested title) rather than abstract repose.

2) Limiting Plaut’s gravitational pull in state revival litigation. Defendants frequently cite Plaut v Spendthrift Farm, Inc. to invoke a general “finality” norm. The First Department’s careful confinement of Plaut to Article III separation-of-powers constraints reduces the likelihood that lower courts will treat Plaut as a due process template in CVA contexts.

3) Pleading-stage realism in institutional-abuse negligence claims. By reaffirming that detailed notice facts may be uniquely held by institutions and that decades-long “open” abuse can render notice plausible, the decision supports survivors’ ability to reach discovery, consistent with G.T. v Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn, N.Y. and related First Department precedent.

4. Complex Concepts Simplified

“Revival window” (CPLR 214-g / CVA)

A revival statute temporarily allows lawsuits that would otherwise be dismissed as too late under ordinary statutes of limitations. The CVA expressly prevents defendants from using a pre-CVA time-bar dismissal, by itself, as a basis to dismiss the revived action.

“Vested rights” doctrine (federal)

The doctrine limits legislative power to disturb certain property rights after they have been reduced to final judgment. The key point in this opinion: a judgment is not automatically “property.” The protected property interest is typically something like a collectible money entitlement, a lien, or vested title—not simply having won a dismissal.

Due process “property interest”

Due process protects property interests that arise from an independent source (often state law). You must first identify the entitlement; only then do constitutional protections attach. Here, defendants could not identify any entitlement linked to a time-bar dismissal other than avoiding litigation.

Supremacy Clause

The Supremacy Clause invalidates state laws that conflict with federal law or the federal Constitution. The court held there was no conflict: the CVA did not violate federal due process (no protected property interest was taken), and it did not contradict any federal statute or command.

CPLR 3211(a)(7) and “notice” in negligence claims

On a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim, the court asks whether the pleading, viewed favorably to the plaintiff, states a viable legal theory and gives the defendant fair notice. Where key details are plausibly within the defendant’s control, courts often allow claims to proceed to discovery, with a bill of particulars available to clarify specifics.

5. Conclusion

M.T. v Yeshiva Univ. establishes a consequential rule for CVA litigation: prior federal judgments dismissing claims as time-barred (and subsequent res judicata dismissals built on them) do not, without more, create a constitutionally protected vested property right that can defeat a CVA revival action. The decision narrows “finality” arguments to situations involving genuine property entitlements (like money judgments or liens) and confirms that, at the pleading stage, survivors need not allege institution-specific notice facts that are plausibly within defendants’ exclusive possession.