State extends window for suing child sex abusers, with 81 cases in Queens so far
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Advocates spoke out in favor of the Child Victims Act in January 2019. State lawmakers voted to extend the CVA’s lookback window through August 2021. AP Photo/Hans Pennink
By David Brand
State lawmakers voted Wednesday to extended a so-called lookback window that allows survivors of childhood sex abuse to sue the perpetrators, regardless of when the abuse occurred.
The Child Victims Act took effect in August 2019, opening a one-year window for survivors to file civil complaints against their alleged abusers or the institutions that enabled the abuse. Lawmakers voted to extend the window until August 2021 to account for a two-month filing freeze that resulted from the COVID-19 court shutdown.
“This is a giant step forward for New York and, more broadly, the Child Protection Movement,” said attorney Jeff Anderson, who specialized in CVA cases and other litigation involving child sex abuse.
The state Senate voted unanimously to extend the measure, a significant departure from the members’ positions on the bill in recent years.
Lawmakers, particularly members of the Republican Party, repeatedly killed the bill amid pressure from groups like the Catholic Church and Boy Scouts of America. The Senate voted in favor of the measure in January 2019, after Democrats took control of the chamber.
The legislative vote comes three weeks after Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed an executive order extending the window until mid-January 2021.
“Many aspects of society have been closed down or are less operational during this pandemic, and the court system is among them,” Cuomo said on May 8. “Because of the reduction in court services due to the virus, we are extending that window for an additional five months.”
There have been 1,786 CVA cases filed statewide as of March 16, the last day of new filings. A total of 805 cases have been filed in the five boroughs, including 81 in Queens.
Courts were flooded with cases when the lookback window first opened, with nearly 1,200 survivors filing cases in the state between August and December 2019. The Catholic Church and the Boy Scouts of America were among the most prominent organizations named in lawsuits.
