State High Courts Split on Laws Letting Survivors of Sexual Abuse Sue After Expiration of Statutes of Limitations

In recent years, several state legislatures have passed statutes making it easier for survivors of sexual abuse to bring civil suits against their abusers and related non-perpetrator defendants. On one hand, these laws have given many survivors the chance to seek justice after decades with no recompense for their suffering. On the other hand, they have exposed institutions like public school districts and Catholic dioceses — which have generally long since implemented safety protocols to stop future abuse — to considerable liability and forced them to defend themselves against lawsuits arising from allegations of decades-old conduct. The stakes in these cases are high and their outcomes will have far-reaching consequences.

Lawsuits brought under the new laws have teed up clashes between state legislatures and courts over the constitutionality of retroactive “lookback windows” — periods of one to three years during which survivors whose potential claims had previously expired are permitted to bring civil suits — and other statutes that purport to permanently revive time-barred civil suits. Cases considering the constitutionality of these lookback provisions have showcased judicial federalism in action, with different states applying different tests to interpret different constitutional provisions with different results. The modes of interpretation highlight contrasting judicial priorities even as justices grapple with the same issue state to state.

A Controversial New Way to Hold Abusers Accountable

In the aftermath of a 2018 Pennsylvania grand jury report on child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, a wave of state legislatures across the country passed bills expanding the length of time for survivors of sexual abuse to bring civil suits against their abusers and affiliated institutions. Some states eliminated the civil statute of limitations for such causes of action altogether. While states had previously lengthened limitations periods for sexual abuse and other tort claims, what was novel about these laws was their purported retroactivity — that is, their application to causes of action that were already time-barred. The new laws sparked an uptick in lawsuits against churches, schools, and other institutions by sexual abuse survivors.

The core question in these cases is whether the expiration of a limitations period creates a vested right for a potential civil defendant — that is, a right not to be sued that cannot be removed by retroactive legislation or ex post facto laws. The U.S. Supreme Court has long held that it does not; it is merely a defense. The court has declared that statutes of limitation reflect “a public policy about the privilege to litigate,” which is held “by legislative grace” and is “subject to a relatively large degree of legislative control.” This means that it is up to state supreme courts to determine whether limitations periods create a vested right for potential defendants under state constitutions.

This issue has been litigated continuously over the last few years with mixed results. Between 2020 and 2024, the high courts of Utah, Kentucky, and Colorado found that expired statutes of limitations created a vested right that could not be retroactively revived by legislation. In the same timeframe, the supreme courts of Georgia and Vermont ruled the opposite way, with the Louisiana Supreme Court first finding a lookback window for child sexual abuse cases unconstitutional before rehearing the case and determining it was in fact constitutional.

This year has seen a flurry of state high court decisions about the constitutionality of state laws undoing expirations of statutes of limitation for sexual abuse cases. In a single week between January and February, the supreme courts of Maine, North Carolina, and Maryland weighed in. Finally, last month, New Hampshire’s high court had its say.

A Year of Diverging Opinions on Lookback Provisions

In the first of the 2025 cases, 13 separate plaintiffs filed suit against the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Portland, alleging clerical sexual abuse stretching back decades. They did so under a 2021 act that abolished the statute of limitations for actions based on “sexual acts toward minors” and purported to do so even where the claims had already expired. A 5–2 majority of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court found that retroactive application of the act “contravenes centuries of our precedent and multiple provisions of the Maine Declaration of Rights as well as the Constitution’s provisions regarding separation of powers.” In response to a dissent noting that the precedent finding vested rights in statutes of limitation was mere dicta, the majority emphasized the court’s prior caselaw “necessarily had to be dicta because the Legislature has never before enacted a statute . . . seeking to revive claims after their statute of limitations had expired.”

Having determined that “precedent answers the question presented,” and reasoning that it “need go no further,” the court nevertheless applied its “Maine-centric, multi-factor analysis,” under which it examined “text and structure, history and purpose, social understandings and values as reflected in statutes and the common law, economic and sociological considerations, and precedent from elsewhere to the extent we find it persuasive.” The court concluded that “retroactive legislation cannot impair vested rights,” and that “once a statute of limitations has expired for a claim, a right to be free of that claim has vested, and the claim cannot be revived.”

Three days later, the North Carolina Supreme Court ruled the opposite way — in favor of three former high school wrestlers sexually abused by their coach — upholding the state’s Safe Child Act, which created a lookback window purporting to revive “any civil action for child sexual abuse otherwise time-barred” for a two-year period between January 2020 and December 2021. After explicating its presumption of constitutionality for statutes validly passed, the court examined the text of the state constitution, “the historical context in which the people of North Carolina enacted it,” and the court’s own precedents. This approach notably drew a forceful critique of “extreme originalism” from Justice Anita Earls, concurring in judgment only. Expounding the North Carolina Constitution’s “law of the land” clause — which prohibits deprivation of “life, liberty, or property, but by the law of the land” — and provision on ex post facto laws, the majority determined that statutes of limitations fall outside the scope of the vested rights doctrine.

Rounding out the week, a 4–3 majority of the Maryland Supreme Court upheld in early February the state’s Child Victims Act of 2023, which provided that an action for alleged child sexual abuse could be brought “at any time” without regard to “any time limitation.” The court concluded that the Maryland Constitution prohibited the retroactive abrogation of a vested right but that the running of an ordinary limitations period “does not provide a potential defendant with a vested right in remaining free from liability.”

Finally, last month, the Supreme Court of New Hampshire went the other way, affirming the trial court’s dismissal of a time-barred suit brought after New Hampshire’s legislature removed the statute of limitations for civil actions based on sexual assault and incest. The plaintiff had been sexually abused as a minor at a Catholic summer camp, but the statute of limitations expired on his claim two years after he reached adulthood, in 1986. Following the change in the law, he filed suit against the Roman Catholic Bishop of Manchester in 2023. The outcome of this case turned on the distinctive language of New Hampshire’s constitution and its long, independent jurisprudential tradition.

In affirming the dismissal, the court grounded its decision in the New Hampshire Constitution’s 18th century prohibition on retroactive legislation, which forcefully declares that “retrospective laws are highly injurious, oppressive, and unjust” and provides that “no such laws, therefore, should be made, either for the decision of civil causes, or the punishment of offenses.” As early as 1826, the court had interpreted this provision to invalidate laws which purported to eliminate a statute of limitations previously in force. The court noted that unlike its counterpart in Maryland, which before its February ruling had “never squarely addressed whether reviving a claim that is time-barred by an ordinary statute of limitations abrogates a vested right,” it was instead relying on two centuries of precedent “that the expiration of a statute of limitations does create a vested right.”

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The outcome among these four states is a two-to-two split this year (and five-to-five split in the last six years) for and against retroactive revival of otherwise time-barred claims. With a trend toward lengthening and even abolishing civil statutes of limitation altogether, it’s possible that the importance of these cases will diminish with time. For now, though, the ability of survivors to sue for the abuse they suffered, and the ability of institutions to look to the future without a nervous eye fixed continuously on the past, will vary — for better or worse — from state to state. These cases show the merits or demerits of judicial federalism and provide an object lesson in the varieties of state constitutional interpretation.

Nathaniel M. Fouch is a law professor at Capital University Law School in Columbus, Ohio.

Suggested Citation: Nathaniel Fouch, State High Courts Split on Laws Letting Survivors of Sexual Abuse Sue After Expiration of Statutes of Limitations, Sᴛᴀᴛᴇ Cᴏᴜʀᴛ Rᴇᴘᴏʀᴛ (Nov. 24, 2025), https://statecourtreport.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/state-high-courts-continue-split-laws-letting-survivors-sexual-abuse-sue