The term “statute of limitations” is one that may be
familiar to people who have tried to get recourse against those who have
cheated or mistreated them. Such a statute is a law that time-limits lawsuits
of some kinds. A person who seeks justice after a certain period has passed may
find that he or she can no longer bring a suit for compensation for harms
experienced.
It’s not unreasonable to have statutes of limitations
for some problems. If too much time has passed, there may be no living
witnesses to an event, and other evidence may have been corrupted or lost. Even
the victim’s memories may have faded or become distorted. Few people would want
to claim that someone who is 75 should be able to bring a lawsuit about
something that happened when he or she was five years old, however terrible
that event might have been.
However, many states have very short time limits on a
range of harmful events that happened during childhood; not only are children
unable to bring their own lawsuits and are helpless if their abusers are their
own parents or guardians, but there are severe limits on the time that can have passed after an abused person has
reached adulthood before he or she can no longer sue.
For readers outside the United States, I should point
out that statutes of limitations in the U.S. are matters of state and not
Federal law. Every state has its own laws on this matter, although many states’
laws resemble each other in various ways. Elizabeth Harris’s articles focus on
the laws of New York State, which are rather stringent in their time
limitations, although not more so than some other states. According to Harris,
residents of New York State have only until they are 21 years old to sue
schools or institutions where they suffered sexual abuse, and until age 23 to
sue an attacker or bring criminal charges (except for rape). For some years,
activists in New York have been attempting to pass legislation to change this
situation. Currently, a bill before the legislature, the Child Victims Act,
proposes allowing survivors to sue until they are 50 years old and to bring
criminal charges until they are 28. It would also provide a one-year window
during which complaints from any previous time could be brought.
Although the Child Victims Act has been brought to the
legislature repeatedly over the last 11 years, without being passed or even
brought up for a vote in some cases, it is possible that the current climate of
opinion, with its strong concerns about sexual misconduct, will support its
passage. It is difficult to imagine resistance to such an act except among
organizations that have reason to protect predators.
I would be most happy to see the Child Victims Act
passed in New York and to see its passage tip off real changes in other states
as well. But I want more.
Yes, sexual abuse of children is a heinous crime and
one deserving of special attention. However, it is not the only form of child
abuse for which recourse is subject to statutes of limitations. Legislation
like the Child Victims Act should include cases of non-sexual abuse, especially
if they occurred in institutions or were protected through bureaucratic or
institutional means. Currently, statutes of limitations can easily prevent
survivors of abusive treatment from bringing suits against their abusers.
Why do I say this? It’s apparent that many victims of
sexual abuse were reluctant to come forward because they felt they would be
attacked for complicity or for malicious intent. Both men and women felt
correctly that publicizing their sexual histories would “punish” them and their
reputations as much or more than it would hurt their molesters. It may seem
less obvious why victims of non-sexual abuse would not quickly seek justice—but
there are real reasons why they might not.
1. 1. They don’t have any money for legal
representation. Individuals who have been in abusive
institutional environments as children usually “age out” at 18 and have all
they can do to take care of themselves. They do not have the background or the
contacts that would enable other 18-yer-olds to get some kind of job, and they
often rapidly move into homelessness, a condition that makes employment even
less likely. It can take years to find their feet financially, if indeed they
ever do so.
2. 2. They don’t have much education. Institutions in
which abusive treatment takes place do not usually provide more than a minimum
of education. As a result, individuals leaving such institutions may have no
idea about lawsuits, about compensation for abusive treatment, about courts,
even about what a lawyer is. Certainly they don’t know about pro bono legal work or about resources
in law schools. Eventually they may learn some of these things, but it takes a
while.
3. 3.They don’t know that what happened to them was abusive.
How people define abuse changes over time, and most of us are really aware
only of abuse that is different from what we are used to seeing (e.g., the
example of debates over spanking). When children have spent years in an abusive
family or foster care, and then have gone to an abusive institution, they may
regard mistreatment as “par for the course”, and only with years of later
experience look back and realize what happened to them.
4. 4. They think the abuse they experienced
was their own fault, as they were often told. It is easy to
make children feel as if adult attacks on them occur because they were “bad” in
some way. Even adolescents who are coerced into false confessions of crimes may
actually believe for some years that they are guilty of things they said they
did—but did not actually do. Only as the years pass and more mature thinking
develops do they realize that they were innocent of the charges they admitted
to.
All of these are reasons why non-sexual abuse,
especially in institutional settings, should not be subject to the present
severe time limitations for recourse.
It is clear that institutions where abuse has taken
place are quick to defend themselves by claiming time limitations for suits
against them. Here is an example that I have blogged about previously. A
17-year-old girl in a Southern state, whom I will call Sophie, was placed in
residential treatment center by her mother, who was concerned about the girl’s
state of mind following a parental divorce that involved some sexual
allegations about the father. During her time in the RTC, Sophie was subjected
to withholding of food, water, and toilet facilities. When she had her period,
she was not allowed sanitary materials, and was mocked as stinking. This
treatment was continued until she conceded, falsely, that she had been molested
by her father. The treatment then continued until she stated, again falsely,
that she had herself molested a younger brother. The facility staff then
reported her as a sexual predator, a label that meant she could not return to
her mother’s house where there were younger children. At 18, Sophie left the RTC, got a job, and
saved up $200 for an hour of an attorney’s time (a feat that was probably
possible for her only because she had not been in the RTC for as many years as
she might have been). The attorney, fortunately, agreed to represent Sophie
without further charge and brought a complaint against the RTC.
As you might guess, the RTC’s lawyers responded by
pointing to the statute of limitations. It had taken Sophie more than a year to
get her life together enough to seek legal representation, and under case law and
legislation in that state she had no recourse for the harm done her. However,
happily, a judge considered all the aspects of Sophie’s life and why she might
not immediately have brought her complaint—and her case is going forward. (I
notice that the RTC is no longer shown on the Internet under its old name.)
Including non-sexual abuse under Child Victims Acts
would be a great help for the Sophies of this world.