Adult Survivors Act Window Opens TOMORROW!

NEW YORK, NY (11/23/2022) (readMedia)-- Tomorrow, the Adult Survivors Act (ASA) lookback window opens on Thanksgiving Day. The ASA is a law that provides a one-year look back window for sexual abuse survivors who are outside the statute of limitations to sue their abuser in court. Any survivor who was sexually assaulted as an adult can now file a civil claim, even if the statute of limitation has expired. Starting tomorrow, survivors will have one year to file a civil suit.

To help get the word about survivors new rights, Safe Horizon launched a video and still photo PSA campaign about the Adult Survivors Act in Times Square featuring survivors of sex abuse – including Evelyn Yang, Drew Dixon, Marissa Hoechstetter, Donna Hylton, Alison Turkos and others.

The PSA campaign is designed to inform adult survivors of sexual abuse about their options under the soon-to-open lookback window. The campaign includes survivors: Evelyn Yang, Drew Dixon, Marissa Hoechstetter, Donna Hylton, Alison Turkos, Audrey Johnson, Robert Bender and Alec Govi, as well as the sponsors of the legislation, Senator Brad Hoylman and Assembly Member Linda Rosenthal. The PSA – which started on Monday – will air in Times Square for a week and also run digitally on social media platforms.

"So many courageous survivors fought for this bill - it is their powerful voices that made the Adult Survivors Act a reality. We stand in solidarity with all survivors who choose to come forward during the lookback window, and with those who don't, and hope that every survivor is able to find a pathway to healing," said Liz Roberts, Safe Horizon CEO.

Safe Horizon also released a new webinar for survivors who might be interested in filing an Adult Survivors Act lawsuit. The one hour video features expert answers from attorneys Mariann Wang, Laura Edidin, Kevin Mintzer, Carrie Goldberg, Kat Thomas and Jeff Fritz, to frequently asked questions about the legal process.

The ASA is based on the Child Victims Act (CVA,) which both extended the criminal & civil statutes of limitations forward and created a one-year lookback window (later extended due to COVID's impact on the courts) to allow time-barred survivors of childhood sexual abuse to sue their abusers & negligent institutions in civil court. Over 10,000 survivors filed civil lawsuits in New York during the two years that the lookback window was open. Safe Horizon also released a PSA for the Child Victims Act (CVA) which applied to survivors who were under 18 years old at the time of their abuse.

Recognizing that the constrained time limits in NY's statutes were not in line with what experts understand about trauma, the legislature in 2019 passed the CVA and extended the civil and criminal statute of limitations for several felony offenses -- including extending the civil statute of limitations for Rape in the second and third degrees prospectively up to 20 years. However, the law does not apply retroactively, meaning that certain survivors who were abused prior to 2019, still have only between 1-5 years to file a civil lawsuit.

The ASA applies to Article 130 crimes, including Rape 2 and 3, criminal sex acts, among others and incest offenses in Section 255. Just like the Child Victims Act, the ASA would also waive the 90 day notice of claim requirement to bring a case against a public institution.

The ASA will create new paths to justice for survivors who were denied access to our courts because of an artificially narrow statute of limitations. The bill will give all survivors, including people who were formerly incarcerated, individuals abused by an intimate partner, and disabled survivors, a much needed chance to hold their abusers accountable.