NEW YORK (NY)
Associated Press
January 23, 2019
In many states across the U.S., victims of long-ago child sex-abuse have been lobbying for years, often in vain, to change statute of limitation laws that thwart their quest for justice. This year seems sure to produce some breakthroughs, due in part to the midterm election results and recent disclosures about abuse by Roman Catholic priests.
New York state is Exhibit A. The Democrats’ takeover of the formerly Republican-controlled Senate seems almost certain to produce a more victim-friendly policy in place of one of the nation’s most restrictive laws.
Prospects are considered good for similar changes in Rhode Island and New Jersey, and the issue will be raised in Pennsylvania — which became the epicenter of the current abuse crisis in August when a grand jury accused some 300 Catholic priests of abusing more than 1,000 children over seven decades.
Abuse survivors and their allies are once again proposing a two-year window for now-adult victims to sue perpetrators and institutions over claims that would otherwise be barred by time limits. That provision was approved by the Pennsylvania House last year but rejected by the top Republican in the Senate.
Nationwide, only a handful of states — including California, Minnesota, Delaware and Hawaii — have created these “lookback windows” enabling victims to file civil lawsuits against institutions such as churches and youth groups that bore some responsibility for the abuse. California’s one-year window opened in 2003, leading to hundreds of civil actions and more than $1 billion in payouts by the Catholic church; activists and legislators in California hope to create a new lookback window this year.
In California, Minnesota and Delaware, large payouts prompted several dioceses to file for bankruptcy. The Catholic Church, the insurance industry and the Boy Scouts of America have lobbied vigorously against efforts to create lookback windows in other states.
University of Pennsylvania professor Marci Hamilton, an expert on statute-of-limitations reforms, predicts that more states will provide windows despite the vociferous lobbying. She says the Pennsylvania grand jury report has changed the dynamics of the debate, increasing pressure on lawmakers to take victim-friendly actions.
“Before, people were giving the bishops the benefit of the doubt, but this time there was outrage,” said Hamilton, the CEO of Child USA, a think tank focused on preventing child abuse. “Politicians now understand that people are behind the victims.”
In New York, victim advocacy groups and their allies in the Legislature have tried for a dozen years to loosen the statute of limitations.
Last year, the legislature’s Democratic-controlled lower chamber overwhelmingly approved the long-stymied Child Victims Act, which would extend the time frames for pursuing civil and criminal cases in the future, and create a one-year window allowing victims to sue over past abuse claims. Senate Republicans blocked the bill from getting a vote and suggested alternatives that lacked the lookback window.
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