McKinney v. Goins

Docket number
109PA22-2
Date

Ruled that the retroactive amendment of the statute of limitations for tort claims by victims of child sexual abuse effected by SAFE Child Act did not disturb or destroy a “vested right” and thus did not violate state constitution’s Law of the Land Clause, and the General Assembly may enact retroactive legislation that does not fall into the two explicitly prohibited categories of retroactive laws enumerated in state constitution’s Ex Post Facto Clause. Justice Anita Earls’ concurrence in the result strongly criticized the majority’s “extreme originalis[t]” methodology that “trace[s] a constitutional provision back in time to its earliest appearance in our constitutions and key its meaning to that time” and “threatens to bring the law and constitutional protections back to that point in this state’s history when slavery was legal and women could not own property or vote.”

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