October 22, 2018

Child Victim’s Act

Survivors of child sexual abuse and sexual assault often do not recover memories of the abuse until well into adulthood. (See http://www.istss.org/public-resources/remembering-childhood-trauma.aspx). For numerous reasons, survivors are unable to speak about, report, or seek help for many years.  Similarly, it often takes survivors years after the abuse to seek restorative justice by filing a criminal or civil complaint against their perpetrators.  Unfortunately, far too often, when survivors are ready to seek justice through the courts, they cannot because they are time barred by a statute of limitations.  

New York State has one of the most restricting statute of limitations.  A July 2018 report from ChildUSA revealed that New York has the "worst" statute of limitations for victims alongside Alabama and Mississippi. 

"The best states for civil SOLs are Minnesota and Delaware and the worst are Alabama, Mississippi, and New York. Moreover, the worst are in a class by themselves as they have set an age cap on civil claims that is so short as to guarantee that 2/3 of the victims will be denied justice. The rigidity of their formula combined with the reality of delayed disclosure means that child abusers have the upper hand." 

Currently, child sexual abuse cases must be brought for both civil and criminal cases by the time the victim turns 23 years old. 

However, new legislation, known as the Child Victims Act, pending before the New York State Senate and backed by Gov. Cuomo will allow victims to bring claims in civil court up to 50 years after the alleged abuse occurred.  It will also provide a one-year window for victims to bring law suits for sex abuse cases that were previously time barred.  

Gov. Cuomo announced that he would be making the Child Victims Act a priority in 2019.  (See here).