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THE REVIVED STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS FOR LAWSUITS ALLEGING SEXUAL ABUSE PURSUANT TO THE CHILD VICTIMS ACT (CVA) DOES NOT VIOLATE DUE PROCESS (FOURTH DEPT).

The Fourth Department, in a full-fledged opinion by Justice Bannister, determined the revived statute of limitations for law suits based upon sexual abuse under the Child Victims Act (CVA) did not violate due process:

… [I]t is well settled that “a claim-revival statute will satisfy the Due Process Clause of the [New York] State Constitution if it was enacted as a reasonable response in order to remedy an injustice” … . Addressing the second prong of that standard first—i.e., whether the statute “remed[ied] an injustice”—the Court of Appeals recognized that, “[i]n the context of a claim-revival statute, there is no principled way for a court to test whether a particular injustice is ‘serious’ or whether a particular class of plaintiffs is blameless; such moral determinations are left to the elected branches of government” … . Here, as evidenced by the legislative history of the CVA, the legislature considered the need for “justice for past and future survivors of child sexual abuse” and the need to “shift the significant and lasting costs of child sexual abuse to the responsible parties” … . Specifically, the legislative history noted the significant barriers those survivors faced in coming forward with their claims, including that child sexual abuse survivors may not be able to disclose their abuse until later in life after the relevant statute of limitations has run because of the mental, physical and emotional injuries sustained as a result of the abuse … . As explained in the Senate Introducer’s Memorandum in Support, “New York currently requires most survivors to file civil actions . . . against their abusers by the age of 23 at most, long before most survivors report or come to terms with their abuse, which has been estimated to be as high as 52 years old on average” … .. Because the statutes of limitat ions left “thousands of survivors” of child sexual abuse unable to sue their abusers, the legislature determined that there was an identifiable injustice that needed to be remedied … . PB-36 Doe v Niagara Falls City Sch. Dist., 2023 NY Slip Op 00598, Fourth Dept 2-3-23

Practice Point: The revived statute of limitations in the Child Victims Act is constitutional.

 

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