All about Trey's Act: The bill that seeks to end NDAs in child abuse cases

In mid-March, a bipartisan group of senators introduced the Terminating Restrictive Enforcement of Confidentiality Agreements for Juveniles Act (Trey's Law). The bill was named after Trey Carlock, a young Texas man who took his own life at age 28 after years of dealing with the aftermath of childhood sexual abuse and legal restrictions that prevented him from speaking publicly about these episodes.

The bipartisan bill was introduced by Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), who was joined by Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Katie Britt (R-AL), Peter Welch (D-VT), Eric Schmitt (R-MO) and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN).

"We owe it to Trey to ensure that victims have the right to speak about their experiences and that contracts are not used to silence survivors. I'm grateful to my colleagues for joining me in introducing this bipartisan bill, and I'm committed to seeing it advanced expeditiously," Cruz said in a statement.

Trey Carlock's Story

Carlock attended Kanakuk Kamps, one of the largest Christian summer camp chains in the country, for years. The abuse took place at the site located in southwestern Missouri. At the camp, and as a minor, he suffered repeated sexual abuse by Pete Newman, the former director of the site.

According to the Texas Tribune, in 2003, a camp supervisor recommended Newman's dismissal for his inappropriate behavior with campers. However, he continued working at the site for another 6 years.

Newman was sentenced in 2010 to three life sentences for various instances of abuse. Even after his conviction, more young men confessed to being abused by Newman, one of them being Andrew Summersett.

Carlock went on with his life and excelled academically and athletically.

At the age of 23, the young man filed a civil lawsuit to hold the rest of those involved responsible for the episodes of abuse he suffered. However, he ended up agreeing to a financial settlement that included a nondisclosure agreement (NDA) that prevented him from talking about the abuse and those involved.

Specifically, an NDA is a confidentiality agreement that obligates a person not to disclose a subject, including details, names or institutions involved. This remedy arises from contract law and the principle that dictates that parties are free to agree on terms between themselves.

The legal process forced him to relive the episodes of abuse, having to detail what happened before lawyers. The process included instances of depositions and formal interviews, where he had to answer questions about various details of Newman's abuse.

Before committing suicide, Trey said the following to a therapist: "They will always control me and I will never be free."

According to his family, the combination of the court proceedings (which forced him to relive the trauma) and the NDA had a strong psychological impact on the young man, which was key to his decision to take his own life.

In this context, a law that seeks to prevent more cases like Trey Carlock's arrived in Congress.

What would the Trey Law do?

According to the authors of the legislation, NDAs were originally created to protect trade secrets, intellectual property and other confidential information, not to protect the reputations of sex offenders and their potential cover-ups.

Aiming to ensure that stories of abuse are not hidden, the bipartisan bill seeks to declare NDAs void in civil settlement agreements related to child sexual abuse and child trafficking. The effect would be retroactive, reaching already signed agreements as well.

If approved, NDAs could no longer be used to prevent a victim from telling their story. This would include not only the event itself, but also everything related to the case and the parties involved. At the same time, it preserves the confidentiality of settlements, including amounts and the victim's identifying information.

Elizabeth Phillips, sister of Trey Carlock, pushed the legislation at the state level and won passage in Texas and Missouri.

She recently appeared on Senator Cruz's podcast, "Verdict," where she spoke about her brother's story and the need to pass a national law.

"In America, where we stand on freedom and freedom of speech and anyone who studied constitutional law, I mean, that is a right as an American citizen to have freedom of speech, and we protect it with veracity. But in this case, there's been a misuse of NDAs, which originally were created to protect intellectual property. Like the Coca Cola recipe or trade secrets," Phillips explained.

"And since then they have been misused to silence victims of child sexual abuse, human trafficking and even survivors of sexual assault in adulthood. Children are having these confidentiality agreements imposed on them, and children cannot consent to contracts or clauses like this. So, often, it's a guardian or a parent who signs this confidentiality agreement on behalf of their child," she added.

"But kids are being put under these NDAs, and kids should they can't consent to contracts or clauses like this. And so oftentimes, it's a guardian or a parent who is signing this NDA on behalf of their child. The child grows up, becomes a young man or woman, realizes what their parents signed and that they can't own their own story," she added. 

The Trey Act has already been introduced in the Senate. If passed, it will move to the House of Representatives and then to President Donald Trump.