NEW YORK
Syracuse.com
By Mike McAndrew | mmcandrew@syracuse.com
ALBANY, N.Y. — The New York State Senate rejected Monday an attempt to force a vote on legislation that would give people sexually abused as children a one-year window to sue over decades-old incidents.
The Senate voted 30-29 against allowing Sen. Brad Hoylman, D-Manhattan, to add controversial provisions eliminating the statute of limitations on child sexual abuse to an unrelated bill that requires hospital emergency rooms and other sites to hang posters about a human trafficking resource center hotline.
The Senate then unanimously passed the human trafficking hotline bill without the amendment that Hoylman was trying to add.
In New York, people who were sexually abused as children must initiate criminal charges or a civil suit by the time they reach 23 or they are barred from doing either.
Victims of sexual abuse have been pressuring state lawmakers to pass bills sponsored by Hoylman and Assemblywoman Margaret Markey that would give victims a one-year window to file lawsuits over past sexual abuse no matter how long ago the incident allegedly occurred. Going forward, the bills would eliminate the time restrictions for bringing a civil suit or criminal charges for sexually abusing a child. The bill would allow lawsuits to be filed against individuals, their employers and institutions, both public and private.
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