State Civil Statutes of Limitations in Child Sexual Abuse Cases

Statutes of Limitations (SOL) is the time in which a lawsuit is initiated by an injured person or victim. In most cases, unless there is a special circumstance, the SOL begins to run from the date of the occurrence that caused the injury. Statutes of limitations are enacted by the legislature, which might extend or reduce time limits, based on certain restrictions.

According to the National Center for Victims of Crime, nearly every state has a basic suspension of the statute of limitation (“tolling”) for civil actions while a person is a minor. Many states have also adopted additional extensions specifically for cases involving sexual abuse of children. Extensions for filing civil actions for child sexual abuse are most often based upon the discovery rule — by the time the victim discovers the sexual abuse or the relationship of the conduct to the injuries, the ordinary time limitation may have expired. This “delayed discovery” may be due to emotional and psychological trauma and is often accompanied by repression of the memory of abuse. Child victims frequently do not discover the relationship of their psychological injuries to the abuse until well into adulthood — usually during the course of psychological counseling or therapy. They may not even discover the fact of such abuse until they undergo such therapy.

For information on the State Criminal Statutes of Limitations, please visit the National Association for the Prosecution of Child Abuse statutes.   VIEW STATE STATUTES HERE

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