PHOENIX โ Some state lawmakers want child sex abuse victims to have more time to sue their assailants, saying it can take years for them to process and understand what happened to them.
Senate Bill 1255 would provide a seven-year window to bring a civil claim to court. The clock would not start running until the victim turns 18 or the person first reports the assault or abuse to a medical provider, whichever comes later.
Current law has a two-year statute of limitations.
At a news conference Wednesday in Phoenix to promote the bill, a victim and advocate said thatโs not nearly enough time.
Joelle Casteix said she was raped, impregnated and given a sexually transmitted disease while a teen attending a Catholic high school in California. It was only when she turned 32, she said, that she felt comfortable coming forward and filing suit, which she could do only after California changed its laws to extend its own time period for litigation.
Through her lawsuit, Casteix said, she got documents that the school knew about abuse, that her assailant had signed a confession to assaulting not just her but other girls, โand he was allowed to resign and quietly move on to high schools and universities where he continued to work with children.โ
It is what a lawsuit can do, she said, that makes such legislation important.
โItโs not about the money,โ Casteix said. She said itโs about accountability: the ability to demand every document that those who shielded the abuser have, and getting abusers exposed so they canโt harm others.
โIt takes survivors of sexual abuse decades to come forward and talk about what happened to them,โ Casteix said.
โThese adults are still in our schools, our churches, our youth-serving organizations and our sport groups right now,โ she said. โMore than 90 percent of the child predators out there have never been exposed.โ
Sen. Lupe Contreras, D-Avondale, said the issue is personal for him, too, at least indirectly. โI stand here as a proud Catholic,โ he said, but added that there was a predator at his parish church.
โSo I know the victims of that time period,โ he said. โโฆ Weโre tired of the cover-up, weโre tired of taking the voices of these young individuals. Since that, their life is no longer the same.โ
Sen. Paul Boyer, R-Phoenix, the billโs prime sponsor, said the two-year limit on sexual abuse claims makes no sense. He pointed out that civil suits over the terms of a written contract can be brought up to six years after.
He also said more than 40 states have statutes of limitations on these kinds of abuse cases longer than in Arizona. The result, said Boyer, is victims abused elsewhere have more rights.
At this point the measure faces an uncertain future: It has not yet even been assigned to a committee for a hearing.
Boyer pushed an identical measure last year, but it wasnโt allowed to the Senate for a vote.
Sen. Bob Worsley, R-Mesa, complained a seven-year window was โputting organizations that may not have had good procedures in place in the past โฆ at a tremendous financial risk.โ
