Date Shared:
February 2nd, 2025
Date Released:
January 31st, 2025
Excerpt
North Carolina’s highest court upheld on Friday a law that gave adult victims of child sexual abuse two additional years to seek civil damages, rejecting arguments that the temporary window violated constitutional protections for those facing claims that otherwise could no longer be pursued in court.
In a case involving a local school board sued by three former students years after an ex-high school coach was convicted of crimes against team members, the state Supreme Court ruled the General Assembly was able to enact a key provision within the 2019 SAFE Child Act that was also signed by then-Gov. Roy Cooper.
Before the law, victims of sexual abuse before age 18 effectively had until turning 21 to file such civil claims against perpetrators. Now such victims have until they’re age 28. But the issue before the court in the Gaston County case was the provision that gave other child sex abuse victims whose time period to sue ended the ability to file valid lawsuits for damages from January 2020 through December 2021.