Thomas Peele, Ed Source

On the eve of what was expected to be a long and gut-wrenching trial, a small school district in Santa Barbara County has settled a sexual abuse lawsuit for $7.5 million with two brothers, now 65 and 68 years old, who claimed a long-dead principal molested them in the 1970s.

Senate Bill 577 by Sen. John Laird, D-Santa Cruz, would have reinstated a statute of limitations on sex abuse claims involving public agencies that lawmakers repealed in 2020.