Abstract
In recent years, child sexual abuse has emerged as a major topic of news, documentaries, and Hollywood films. Public attention on child sexual abuse, including the Boston Globe's reporting on the sexual abuse of children by priests in the Catholic Church, sexual abuse of elite gymnasts, and the #MeToo movement, have brought increased attention to the issue, sparking calls for reform and access to justice. State legislatures across the country have answered these calls for reform by seeking to improve civil statutes of limitation in order to increase survivor access to justice. Between 2002 and 2020, forty-eight states and the District of Columbia (D.C.) have reformed their civil statutes of limitations for child sexual abuse claims. Major trends in statute of limitation reform include increasing the age by which a survivor may sue, extending the amount of time a survivor has to file a claim after discovering that the abuse caused their injuries, and creating "open window[s]" under which previously barred claims are retroactively revived.
Repository Citation
Emma Hetherington,
Considering the Therapeutic Consequences of Recent Reforms to Civil Statutes of Limitations for Child Sexual Abuse Claims
, 15 Charleston L. Rev. 639
(2021),
Available at: https://digitalcommons.law.uga.edu/fac_artchop/1410