LOS ANGELES — Los Angeles County is poised to pay out an additional $828 million to victims who say they were sexually abused in county facilities as children, months after agreeing to the largest sex abuse settlement in U.S. history.

The award, posted on the county claims board agenda Friday, would resolve an additional 414 cases that were not included in the $4-billion sex abuse settlement approved this spring. Both the supervisors and the county claims board will need to vote on the payout before it is finalized.

It was not clear on Friday who would oversee the allocation of the new looming settlement or what the distribution and vetting process of the plaintiffs would be for those cases.

The record $4 billion settlement covers more than 11,000 people who say they were abused inside county-run juvenile facilities and foster homes as children. The individual payouts in that case will range from $100,000 to $3 million.

The newest payout would break down to an average of roughly $2 million per person. It involves cases from three prominent law firms: Manly, Stewart & Finaldi, Arias Sanguinetti Wang & Team, and Panish Shea Ravipudi.

The firms declined to comment on the potential settlement until the vote by the Board of Supervisors.

The flood of lawsuits began in 2020 after California passed a law extending the statute of limitations for survivors of childhood sexual abuse. The three firms broke from the other attorneys suing the county during negotiations and declined to take part in the $4-billion settlement, arguing they could land a better deal for their clients on their own.

The firms, each of which specializes in sex abuse cases, previously won massive settlements against the Catholic Church, former University of Southern California gynecologist George Tyndall, and the Moreno Valley School District for the sexual abuse of two students by a middle school teacher.

The announcement of a hefty new legal expenditure by the county follows reporting by the Los Angeles Times that found nine plaintiffs who say they were paid by recruiters to sue the county over sex abuse. Four of them said they were explicitly told to make up claims. All had lawsuits filed by Downtown LA Law Group, or DTLA, which has roughly 2,700 cases in the $4 billion settlement.

DTLA declined to comment Friday.

The firm has denied any involvement with recruiters who allegedly paid plaintiffs to sue. DTLA said previously it would never "encourage or tolerate anyone lying about being abused" and is conducting new screenings to remove "false or exaggerated claims" from its caseload.

Following The Times' reporting, the county launched an investigation and said that any claims brought by DTLA as part of the $4-billion settlement will undergo an additional review before payments are made. The extra screening "may require plaintiff interviews and additional proof of allegations," the county said.

The county declined to provide additional details about the screening methods, saying it would "risk compromising their effectiveness and could enable bad actors to further evade scrutiny." The county said DTLA had agreed, at its request, to pay for the cost of the review.

Supervisor Kathryn Barger said the added vetting will ensure "money goes only to the true victims of abuse."

"Our settlements balance our obligation to compensate victims and treat their experiences with compassion with the need to put strong protections in place to protect taxpayers from fraud," she said.

The cases in the two settlements will be reviewed by retired judges before the money is allocated, the county said.

The $4-billion settlement will be allocated by retired Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Louis Meisinger, who mediated similar settlements after the 2023 Maui wildfires and the 2017 Las Vegas concert mass shooting.

If Meisinger believes a claim is fraudulent, the plaintiff will not get any money, the county said Friday. The county's original plan stated that if the county found a fraudulent claim, it would either offer the plaintiff $50,000 to resolve the case or have the lawsuit removed from the settlement so that it could be litigated separately.

The deluge of claims was unleashed with the passage of Assembly Bill 218 in 2020, which changed the statute of limitations and gave survivors a new window to sue their abusers. Since then, school districts and governments have faced many decades-old claims, for which they say there are no longer records kept on file to allow for vetting.

County supervisors have been increasingly critical of the law, which they argue has left them defenseless against claims dating to the 1950s. If the supervisors approve the new settlement, the county will have agreed to pay out nearly $5 billion in child sex abuse lawsuits this year — with more to come.

County Counsel Dawyn Harrison says she wants to see the law changed so "unscrupulous lawyers don't get windfalls at the expense of survivors of abuse."

"The conduct alleged to have occurred by the DTLA firm is absolutely outrageous and must be investigated by the appropriate authorities," said Harrison. "Not only does it undermine our justice system, it also deprives legitimate claimants of just compensation."

The county faces an additional 2,500 pending sex abuse lawsuits, which they say will further strain the region's social safety net because of ballooning legal costs. The county recently required most departments trim their budgets.

"L.A. County and other local governments must balance their obligations to past victims with the need to avoid ruinous financial impacts," said acting Chief Executive Joe Nicchitta.

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