A federal judge in Maryland is allowing a case to move forward against WWE by plaintiffs alleging sexual abuse in the 1980s and 1990s that the organization failed to stop.
Defendants World Wrestling Entertainment, LLC; TKO Group Holdings, Inc.; and Vince McMahon and Linda McMahon (currently U.S. Education Secretary) argued that the suit against them violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s due process clause because the people accused by the plaintiffs are all dead. They also say that the loss of witnesses, memory and documents in the years since the alleged abuses “imposes peculiar hardships on Defendants,” per court documents.
The plaintiffs were “ring boys” hired as minors to help set up and dismantle rings in multiple states for events put on by the World Wrestling Federation, now known as WWE.
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Each plaintiff alleged that former ringside announcer Mel Phillips Jr. sexually abused them. One of the plaintiffs alleged abuse by eventual Vice-President of WWE Operations Terry Garvin, and another alleged abuse by WWE employee Pat Patterson, the purported “right hand” of then-WWE owner Vince McMahon, according to court documents.
The plaintiffs also said that the alleged abuses took place at locations connected to WWE events and that the defendants knew or should have known about the abuses and the threat the accused posed to minors, the DiCello Levitt law firm representing some of the plaintiffs involved says on its website.
All three of the accused men are dead; Garvin died in 1998, Phillips died in 2012 and Patterson died in 2020.
While the alleged abuses took place in multiple states, each plaintiff said some of the abuse against them took place in Maryland. Maryland lawmakers passed the Maryland Child Victims Act in 2023, removing the statute of limitations for civil suits involving allegations of childhood sexual abuse.
Judge James Bredar of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland found against the defendants, ruling that the application of the Maryland law was appropriate and did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment.
The suit was initially filed in 2024. The Supreme Court of Maryland found in February 2025 that the Maryland Child Victims Act of 2023 could be applied to cases from before its passage, and in December 2025 Judge Bredar shot down a motion to dismiss filed by the defendants, DiCello Levitt said.
In a statement, DiCello Levitt partner and attorney Greg Gutzler said that the “ruling is a significant victory … Trauma does not follow a legal deadline, and Maryland’s Child Victims Act recognizes that reality. Our clients have waited years to hold those responsible accountable. We will not stop fighting until their voices are heard and they have their day in court.”
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