New Law in Texas Bans Use of NDAs to Silence Abuse Survivors
Nondisclosure agreements can no longer be used to silence abuse survivors in Texas under a new law that goes into effect Sept. 1.
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The law bans the use of NDAs to prevent a survivor of sexual assault, aggravated sexual assault, human trafficking or child sexual abuse from disclosing their abuse to others. A perpetrator can no longer offer an abuse victim a settlement contingent on an NDA — effectively buying their silence.
Trey’s Law applies to employment agreements along with settlements, and to existing NDAs, not just future ones. It will have a particularly big impact on civil sex abuse and assault cases, which almost always involve negotiations over NDAs, lawyers who specialize in those cases told The Dallas Morning News.
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Here’s what to know.
The Law’s Origins
The law is named after Trey Carlock, whose sister, Elizabeth Carlock Phillips of Highland Park, testified in support of the bill earlier this year. Carlock died by suicide in 2019 at age 28.
Phillips alleged in March testimony that a counselor at Kanakuk, a network of Christian summer camps, sexually abused her brother as a child. That counselor was charged with child sex abuse crimes against other victims and sentenced in 2010 to two consecutive life sentences plus 30 years in prison, according to Missouri court records.
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Carlock filed a civil case against Kanakuk, Phillips said, and signed a non-disclosure agreement at the end of an exhausting and re-traumatizing process. “My brother referred to his settlement as blood money, as if he had betrayed his own soul to keep Kanakuk’s secrets,” Phillips said. “And it killed him.”
After Trey’s Law won final approval in the House in May, Phillips told The News that she’d never been prouder to be a Texan. “I was just thinking of my brother Trey, and how grateful I am for his legacy,” she said.
How the Law Will Affect Court Cases
Anna Greenberg, a partner at Houston-based firm Blizzard Greenberg PLLC, recently posted a TikTok calling Trey’s Law a “huge win” for survivors in Texas. She specializes in personal injury cases with a focus on sex assault survivors, and said Trey’s Law will have a particular impact on civil sex abuse and assault cases.
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Civil cases are often more worthwhile for sex assault survivors than criminal cases, Greenberg said. Civil cases offer the survivor a chance for a financial settlement to cover things like medical expenses or therapy costs and come with a different burden of proof.
In a criminal case, defendants must prove something happened beyond a reasonable doubt, which Greenberg said can’t be done in some sex assault cases.
Greenberg said that all of the civil sex assault cases she’s worked on involved negotiations over a potential non-disclosure agreement. Most civil lawsuits in general settle without a trial, she said, and those pre-trial settlements in sex assault cases very often include some kind of NDA.
Avoiding bad publicity is a big motivator for companies and individuals to settle with a survivor who says they were assaulted, or says a company was negligent in or is otherwise liable for their assault.
“The defendants, any time a case settles, are desperate to make sure there’s no more attention on this case,” Greenberg said. “This law really prohibits them from doing that in the future.”
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Michelle Simpson Tuegel, a Dallas-based victims attorney, has been practicing in North Texas since 2010 and started a firm in 2018. She said her firm focuses primarily on handling civil sex assault and sex abuse cases.
Tuegel said she has already cited Trey’s Law in several sex assault or abuse cases she’s working on.
“What Elizabeth Phillips did in memory of her brother is already changing people’s lives,” said Tuegel, who said Phillips is a friend.
Before Trey’s Law, Tuegel said her clients often had to choose between agreeing to some kind of NDA, and settling a case, or going through the exhausting and often re-traumatizing process of a trial.
