< Adult Victims Of Childhood Sex Abuse In New York Can Sue Alleged Abusers

August 14, 20195:00 AM ET

Adult Victims Of Childhood Sex Abuse In New York Can Sue Alleged Abusers

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DAVID GREENE, HOST:

As of today, adult victims of childhood sex abuse in New York have one year to bring civil lawsuits against their alleged abusers and also the institutions that may have allowed the abuse. Many survivors say this is a new chance to seek justice after years of suffering in silence. Mara Silvers of member station WNYC has more.

MARA SILVERS, BYLINE: The one-year filing period is known as a look-back window. It allows victims to bring cases that used to be beyond the state's statute of limitations that legislators overhauled this year. Manhattan assembly member Yuh-Line Niou is one of the people who voted for the new law and touted it at a news conference yesterday.

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YUH-LINE NIOU: The passing of this legislation is telling survivors like myself that our stories matter to our governments and that we count in the eyes of the law.

SILVERS: The law gives survivors more time to file civil and criminal cases going forward and opens the look-back window for old cases. Most survivors in New York used to be cut off after they turned 23. Marci Hamilton is the director of the group Child USA and a professor at the University of Pennsylvania. She says the old law didn't serve victims.

MARCI HAMILTON: The victim would get their courage up. They'd go to talk to a lawyer, and they would be told, oh, you're too late. You're not just too late. You're too late by 20 years.

SILVERS: Critics of the look-back window say the cases may be based on faulty evidence or faded memories. But survivors say it's a chance to finally have their day in court. Seventy-four-year-old Jim Corcoran is one of hundreds of people suing Manhattan's Rockefeller University Hospital over alleged abuse by one of its doctors. Reginald Archibald worked there for roughly four decades and died in 2007. Corcoran said he wants the institution to be held accountable.

JIM CORCORAN: This guy was a predator. It was a commonsense thing. You're a fiduciary. You're supposed to be protecting these children.

SILVERS: Rockefeller Hospital has said it profoundly apologizes to any former patients who were harmed. This month, it sued its insurers to make sure they'd provide coverage for the lawsuits. New York is not the first state to open this kind of filing period for victims. California had a one-year look-back window in 2003, which led to about 1,000 cases and hundreds of millions of dollars in settlements. Since Minnesota closed its look-back window in 2016, multiple Catholic dioceses have filed for bankruptcy protection. Today marks the start of another state's extensive reckoning. New York courts are expecting to see hundreds, if not thousands, of lawsuits filed in the coming weeks and months. For NPR News, I'm Mara Silvers in New York.

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