Governor Kathy Hochul signs Adult Survivor’s Act (May 24, 2022)
Governor Kathy Hochul has signed the Adult Survivors Act which will allow adult sexual abuse survivors the right to sue.
The legislation creates a one-year lookback window for survivors of sexual assault that occurred when they were over the age of 18 to sue their abusers regardless of when the abuse occurred.
In 2019, New York passed the Child Victims Act, which created a one-year lookback window for survivors of childhood sexual abuse to file claims otherwise barred by the statute of limitations.
Similar to the Child Victims Act, the one-year window will begin six months from signing and will allow survivors to sue regardless of the statute of limitations.
In 2019, New York extended the statute of limitations to 20 years for adults filing civil lawsuits for a select number of sex crimes. However, that legislation only affected new cases and was not retroactive.
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