PENNSYLVANIA
PennLive
By Marie Whitehead
When the state House voted 18-15 in April to approve a bill reforming Pennsylvania’s statutes of limitations for child sex abuse cases, survivors of child sex abuse and advocates across the state breathed a sigh of relief.
With the legislation’s elimination of the criminal statute of limitations and extension of the civil statute to age 50—along with retroactivity—survivors felt assured that they might one day have the chance to bring their abusers to justice in court.
Then the bill hit a major roadblock in the Senate Judiciary Committee
Swayed by misleading claims about the bill’s constitutionality and effect on private organizations, such as the Catholic Church, State Senators gutted the bill.
They stripped it of its retroactivity provisions and inserted a preamble that has become a poison pill for survivors and advocates, and threatens to adversely affect all tort and personal injury cases in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
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