MASSACHUSETTS
Boston Herald
Thursday, December 10, 2015
Massachusetts’s highest court upheld a law extending the time sexual abuse victims have to file lawsuits against their alleged perpetrators.
The Supreme Judicial Court ruled yesterday in the case of a woman who sued her uncle in 2012, alleging he sexually abused her repeatedly between 1968 and 1977, beginning when she was 5 years old.
The uncle had reached a settlement with his niece for $26,500 in exchange for her not suing him for nine years of sexual abuse. However, after therapy, the woman later alleged her uncle forced her to have sex with other men and sued him again. The uncle’s lawyer, however, had the case dismissed.
The Legislature amended the law in 2014 to extend the statute of limitations for civil cases alleging sexual abuse of a minor from three years to 35 years and allowed it to be applied retroactively. The SJC has now upheld that law, saying it recognizes that in many cases, victims are not able to appreciate the extent of harm caused to them until years after the abuse ended.
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