Civil Statutes of Limitations for Sex Crimes: Reform Enables Justice 

Survivors and offenders deserve their day in court, but the law often denies it. In too many states, arbitrary time limits prevent survivors from suing abusers and the institutions that enabled them. These outdated statutes of limitations (SOLs) deny justice to sexual assault survivors, instead allowing rapists, abusers, and their enablers to evade accountability and continue their harm. 

Your state can begin to show survivors that they are the priority—not the perpetrators—by amending the civil statutes of limitations for sex crimes. We can, and must, do better for the hundreds of adults and children who are sexually assaulted each day.

The current system uses arbitrary, archaic statutes of limitations to block victims’ access to justice. These laws specifically benefit repeat abusers and those who maintain control over victims by expiring before survivors can even disclose.

You can ensure that rapists cannot escape justice in your state. 

• Eliminating barriers to justice for survivors allows your state to identify hidden predators and the institutions that endanger the public by protecting them. 

• Holding offenders accountable shifts the cost of the harm from the victim and taxpayer to those who cause abuse. 

Below, we offer arguments for why and how to change your state’s civil statute of limitations, along with sample statutory text. 

The Need for Reform 

When reforming statutes of limitations, states must balance protecting citizens from sexual violence with ensuring fair trials. Lawmakers can achieve this balance when adjusting sex crime statutes. Altering a statute of limitations does not change the plaintiff’s burden of evidence or the burden of proof required to secure relief. Whether a civil statute of limitations is five or one hundred years, the plaintiff still bears the burden of proof, evidence rules remain unchanged, and court procedures stay the same. Statutes of limitations do not ease this burden or make civil claims simpler to win.  

Civil statutes of limitations reform reflects an improved understanding of sexual violence and its effects. We now know that trauma often causes victims to delay or avoid reporting. Failing to reform these statutes ignores the science of survivors’ reality. Inaction discourages reporting, incentivizes institutions to conceal abuse, and allows abusers to escape, potentially causing further harm. Conversely, providing survivors access to justice whenever they can report helps overcome these barriers. 

Addressing civil statutes of limitations builds survivor trust, shifts financial burdens from victims and taxpayers to abusers, and holds complicit organizations accountable. Removing arbitrary time limits signals to perpetrators and enablers that they cannot simply outwait justice. This serves public safety by holding often serial sexual assault criminals accountable. 

Understanding the Impact

While short statutes of limitations won’t deter a perpetrator, they do incentivize covering up the crime until the time limit passes. 

Consider C.G., sexually abused at age nine by her father, a former ecclesiastical leader who had confessed to other church leaders. When C.G. finally came forward as an adult, a lawyer from her church “would employ the risk management playbook that has helped the church keep child sexual abuse cases secret.” (1) This included discouraging the confessing leader from testifying and offering C.G. “hundreds of thousands of dollars in exchange for a confidentiality agreement and a pledge…to destroy their recordings.” Such actions prevented C.G. from seeking justice, allowing the abuser to continue his dental practice.

Too many recent cases reveal patterns where victims come forward, only to discover multiple victims and organizational cover-ups. These examples involve individuals and major institutions that intentionally protected themselves over the victims: 

• Larry Nassar abused hundreds of gymnasts, with educational and sports organizations allegedly failing to protect victims. (2) 

• Medical institutions have protected doctors who abused patients, like Columbia University and convicted sex offender Robert Hadden. (3) 

• Educational institutions have long blocked justice for school abuse survivors, as seen in cases involving forced indigenous children’s schools nationwide. (4) 

All these abuses spanned decades, and in each situation, perpetrators and enabling organizations invoked statutes of limitations to avoid responsibility.

As the nation’s largest anti-sexual violence organization, RAINN champions eliminating arbitrary statutes of limitations that force victims to carry the burden of the abuse that individuals and organizations perpetrated. 

In some states, lawmakers eliminated the criminal statutes of limitations for their most serious sex offenses. And more than 22 U.S. States, Territories, and the federal government have completely eliminated the civil statutes of limitations for at least some of their most serious sex offenses. (5)

States must reform their civil statutes of limitations to allow all victims of sexual abuse to shift the economic burden of their abuse to the perpetrators or enablers whenever sufficient evidence is available to prove the claim.

Outdated Opposition

Outdated arguments in favor of strict, short statutes of limitations fail to reflect changes to the courts and research on the impacts of sexual violence. The core purpose of these statutes is to encourage plaintiffs to pursue claims diligently. Thus, most begin when a plaintiff realizes harm. While logical for contract disputes or medical malpractice, this reasoning ignores the realities that sexual abuse victims face.  

Approximately 1 in 5 victims of child sexual abuse never disclose their experiences to anyone, and of those who do disclose, only 10% disclose to legal authorities. (6) Child sexual abuse disclosure is a “complex and lifelong process,” often delayed until adulthood, influenced by “individual, familial, contextual, and cultural factors.” (7) (8) In one study of child sexual abuse survivors, over half first disclosed at age 50 or older. (9)

The factors that hinder child victims from disclosing also prevent disclosure by adult victims of sexual assault. Similar to children, only 46% of adult rape victims report their abuse to police. (10) Of those victims who do report to the police, if the perpetrator was a non-stranger, 90% of the victims reported it to the police after one week or more. (11) 

Common reasons for delay include fear of the criminal justice system, disbelief, and blame. This explains why victims often come forward after news reports expose a perpetrator: they realize they’re not alone. The trauma and reporting barriers surrounding sexual violence are distinct from almost any other injurious behavior, demanding a different approach to justice.

Opponents argue that longer statutes of limitations force the accused to defend against claims based on fading memories or unavailable witnesses. However, this is an argument about evidentiary sufficiency. Even with eliminated statutes, victims must still produce evidence for their claim. Fading memories and missing witnesses hinder victims as much as defendants in civil cases; these evidentiary issues can defeat a victim’s claim.

Nonetheless, a victim with sufficient evidence should not be denied justice by an arbitrary time limit. Furthermore, opponents’ concerns are increasingly unfounded. Technological advancements provide new evidence: DNA, cell phone records, video, and audio. Additionally, procedural and evidentiary rules protect against unreliable testimony.

Opponents of the extension or elimination of civil statutes of limitations have also cited a fear that change will lead to an opening of the floodgates, inundating courts with new cases. However, states that have eliminated their statutes of limitations or expanded them have not lamented an undue burden on the courts. This makes sense: The burden of proof on plaintiffs has not changed, even if more victims are allowed the possibility of judicial access. Moreover, such a drain on courts is unlikely given the historically low reporting rates for sex offenses. Instead, allowing these cases to go forward shifts the financial burden from the victim and the taxpayer to the perpetrators and enablers. (12)

Eliminating Time Limitations Is Constitutional

Eliminating statutes of limitations allows victims and communities to seek justice, preventing defendants from evading accountability by waiting out the clock. 

The United States Supreme Court observed that statutes of limitations 

are by definition arbitrary, and their operation does not discriminate between the just and the unjust claim, or the voidable and unavoidable delay. They have come into the law not through the judicial process but through legislation. They represent a public policy about the privilege to litigate. Their shelter has never been regarded as what is now called a ‘fundamental’ right or what used to be called a ‘natural’ right of the individual. (13)

Therefore, lawmakers can constitutionally eliminate any statutes of limitations for any cause of action. Legislative public policy considerations that have outweighed the concerns with removing statutes of limitations include giving access to the courts for those citizens who have been seriously harmed; recognizing that the trauma inflicted on a victim prevents their disclosure of the crime (14); serial offenders are still in the community; and that some organizations are more concerned about covering up these crimes than preventing them. Legislatures can decide that statutes of limitations no longer serve the public good.  

Legislatures can also constitutionally allow victims to pursue claims even if the statute of limitations has already passed. The United States Supreme Court ruled that retroactive civil statutes of limitations are constitutional under the federal constitution, finding:

..a state legislature, consistently with the Fourteenth Amendment, may repeal or extend a statute of limitations, even after right of action is barred thereby, restore to the plaintiff his remedy, and divest the defendant of the statutory bar. This has long stood as a statement of the law of the Fourteenth Amendment… (15) 

The majority of states that have considered the issue have found retroactively reviving previously barred civil claims is permitted under their state constitutions as well. (16) As the Louisiana Supreme Court stated in June 2024, “the due process guarantee is protection from arbitrary and unreasonable action” (17) and the Louisiana legislature had multiple legitimate and compelling reasons for the revival window, including providing victims an opportunity to bring a claim. (18)

3 Recommendations for Civil Statutes of Limitations

RAINN recommends the following to policymakers to ensure that victims have access to justice to hold their abusers accountable and shift the financial burden from victims and the community to the abuser and those organizations that enabled the abuse. 

We recognize that each state’s code is unique and complicated. RAINN’s policy experts can work hand-in-hand with lawmakers and their staff to tailor these recommendations to meet each state’s specific needs. 

1. Serious Sex Crimes

Eliminate civil statutes of limitations for serious sex crimes.

Eliminating arbitrary and archaic statutes of limitations allows victims access to justice, protects members of the community, identifies predators and the organizations that hide them, and shifts the cost of the harm from the victim and taxpayer to the perpetrators and enablers. Legislatures have the constitutional authority to eliminate civil statutes of limitations and allow victims to hold offenders accountable when there is sufficient evidence to prove the claims.

2. Retroactive Application

Ensure that statutes of limitations for serious sex crimes apply retroactively.

It is a general rule that all statutes are to be considered prospective (effective from the date of enactment going forward), unless there is express language that the statute is to apply retrospectively. (19) Because a victim should have access to justice whenever there is sufficient evidence to prove their claim, any claims that may have expired under prior statutes of limitations laws should now be allowed. Defendants and those complicit in the abuse should not be rewarded for running out the clock until after an arbitrary time limit has passed.  

3. Permit Claims Against Enablers

Allow victims to bring claims against organizations and individuals who enabled the offender to commit the sexual abuse.

Organizations or persons that are complicit in the harm to victims from sexual abuse should also bear the economic burden currently being carried by the victim and the taxpayer. They should not be absolved for conduct that often contributed to a survivor’s delayed reporting. Holding these enablers accountable ensures systemic change to deter future community abuse. As Professor Amos Guiora noted, 

W]hen an individual’s loyalties and responsibilities to an institution put them at odds with preventing sex abuse, it is far too often the institution which takes precedence. …  It is a plague which, sadly, permeates institutions of all types, be it a school, hospital, sports team, church, military, or government agency. … I have interviewed dozens of survivors who suffered under an abuser who was protected by an institution. The survivor’s expectation of the institution is simple: to be protected. Yet, time after time, these survivors found that it was the good name and reputation of the institution which was protected rather than themselves. Many survivors express that their anger towards those who enabled the abuse is greater than their anger towards the abuser. …. The time has come to say, ‘enough is enough.’ (20)

Next Steps

• Visit RAINN’s State Law Database for information about the laws in your state 
• Learn about statutes of limitations for sexual violence cases
• Email policy@rainn.org to schedule a call with a RAINN policy expert

NOTES & CITATIONS

(1) https://apnews.com/article/mormon-church-investigation-child-sex-abuse-9c301f750725c0f06344f948690caf16

(2)  https://apnews.com/article/80397768657e48d29d39fbdf1f911896; https://apnews.com/article/michigan-sexual-assault-bill-larry-nassar-9f3dee6250cc18629d3cb5e8542ec0f8 

(3)  https://www.newsweek.com/300-patients-sue-columbia-doctors-sexual-abuse-1832067 

(4)  https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-native-americans-schools/ 

(5)  https://childusa.org/2024sol/

(6)  Delayed Disclosure Child USA 2024 Factsheet, A Comprehensive Report on Delayed Disclosure in Cases of Child Sexual Abuse, Insights, Implications, and Pathways Forward, https://childusa.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Delayed-Disclosure-2024.pdf

(7)  Alaggia, R., Collin-Vézina, D., & Lateef, R. (2019). Facilitators and Barriers to Child Sexual Abuse (CSA) Disclosures: A Research Update (2000–2016). Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, 20(2), 260-283. https://doi.org/10.1177/1524838017697312

(8)  Id.

(9) Delayed Disclosure Child USA 2024 Factsheet, A Comprehensive Report on Delayed Disclosure in Cases of Child Sexual Abuse, Insights, Implications, and Pathways Forward, https://childusa.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Delayed-Disclosure-2024.pdf

(10)  https://bjs.ojp.gov/document/cv22.pdf

(11)  www.nationalguard.mil/portals/31/documents/j1/sapr/sarcvatraining/barriers_to_credibility.pdf

(12)  The estimated tangible and intangible costs for a victim of rape/sexual assault is $240,776 in 2008 dollars.  $351,754 in today’s dollars.  See McCollister KE, French MT, Fang H. The cost of crime to society: New crime-specific estimates for policy and program evaluation. Drug Alcohol Depend. 2010 Apr 1;108(1-2):98-109. doi: 10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2009.12.002. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2835847/

(13)  Chase Sec. Corp. v. Donaldson, 325 U.S. 304, 314 (1945)

(14)  see United States v. Briggs, 592 U.S. 69, 77, 141 S. Ct. 467, 473, 208 L. Ed. 2d 318 (2020)

(15)  Chase Sec. Corp. v. Donaldson, 325 U.S. 304, 311–12, 65 S. Ct. 1137, 1141, 89 L. Ed. 1628 (1945)

(16)  See e.g. A.B. v S.U. 2023 VT 32, ¶24-25 (Vermont)(identifying Georgia, Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, Montana, California, and New York as some of those states); but see Mitchell v. Roberts, 2020 UT 34 (Utah)(finding retroactive statute unconstitutional)

(17)  Bienvenu v. Defendant 1, 2023-01194 (La. 6/12/24), 386 So. 3d 280, 290–91

(18)  The Court also identified other legitimate and compelling interests as identifying hidden perpetrators; shifting the costs of abuse to the perpetrators; and educating the public to prevent future abuse.

(19)  Fullerton-Krueger Lumber Co. v. N. Pac. Ry. Co., 266 U.S. 435, 437, 45 S. Ct. 143, 144, 69 L. Ed. 367 (1925)

(20)  Sexual Assault Enablers, Institutional Complicity, and the Crime of Omission, Submission to the Victorian Parliament Legislative Council Social and Legal Committee, September 2021. https://dc.law.utah.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1310&context=scholarship