The Adult Survivors Act: The End to a Year of Record-Breaking Sexual Assault Suits

By: Sarah Wejman

Edited by: Jack Pacconi and Angie Chung

The day after Thanksgiving marked the end of one of the most influential state sexual assault laws to date. The Adult Survivors Act (ASA), put into effect from November 24, 2022, to the end of the year, was an amendment to New York’s Civil Practice Law and Rules. The ASA essentially created a one-year period to allow victims whose statute of limitations expired to sue their abusers.[1] This period has caused a surge of over 3,000 sexual abuse civil suits.[2] 

The ASA led to many high-profile lawsuits, including those against actor Jamie Foxx, former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, New York Mayor Eric Adams, and former President Donald Trump. There were also “at least 479 suits for charges of abuse at Rikers Island,”[3] a  prison infamous for a culture infiltrated with mismanagement, perpetual violence, and an increasing number of jail deaths. Former hospital patients accounted for a handful of other cases, several of which were against a former Columbia University gynecologist, Robert Hadden.[4] 

In years before the ASA’s extension, New York passed a couple of progressive but less expansive sexual assault and abuse laws. In 2019, the state extended the statute of limitations to 20 years for individuals filing civil suits for certain sex crimes, and in the same year, they passed the Child Victims Act, which created a “look back period” so that people who were sexually abused as children could file suit as adults.[5] 

The passing of such laws sparked a national debate on whether this type of legislation was beneficial. Several Democratic lawmakers strongly vouched for its extension and called for a permanent version of it. Most notably, Sen. Brad Holman-Sigal of Manhattan stated that “statutes of limitations only serve to protect the perpetrators.”[6] Liz Roberts, the CEO of Safe Horizon, a New York organization to support victims of violence, echoed his sentiments in a recent statement, explaining that “what we have learned is that trauma takes time” and, as evidenced by many of the recent cases, it is harder to confront sexual assault committed by a person of higher authority and power.[7] On the other hand, others claimed that the statute of limitations extension, aside from for children and prisoners, may potentially endanger the defendant's rights due to a lack of evidence and witnesses. As Harvard Law Professor Emeritus Alan Dershowitz stated many years ago, “[h]ow do you expect people to remember details of something that happened or didn’t happen?”[8] In years to come, sexual assault victims might have increasingly different rights depending on their state. Being a states’ rights issue, it will be interesting to see how other states will react and whether or not they will take similar measures to New York. 

Notes:

1. Adult Survivors Act, S66 §214-j (2022) 

2. Hurubie Meko, “A Final Wave of Sex-Abuse Lawsuits as One-Year Window Closes in New York,” The New York Times, November 27, 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/27/nyregion/adult-survivors-act-lawsuits.html.

3. Hurubie Meko, “A Final Wave.” 

4. Corinne Ramey and Erin Ailworth, “The Law That Brought to Light a Flurry of Sexual-Assault Allegations,” The Wall Street Journal, November 28, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/us-news/new-york-law-sexual-assault-accusations-60daa 252?page=1.

5. Corinne Ramey and Erin Ailworth, “The Law That.” 

6. Betsy McCaughey, “No, New York Shouldn’t Extend the Adult Survivors Act,” New York Post, December 4, 2023, https://nypost.com/2023/12/04/opinion/no-new-york-shouldnt-extend-the-adult -survivors-act/. 

7. Hurubie Meko, “A Final Wave.” 

8. Hurubie Meko, “A Final Wave.”

Bibliography:

Adult Survivors Act, S66 §214-j (2022) 

McCaughey, Betsy. “No, New York Shouldn’t Extend the Adult Survivors Act.” New York Post, December 4, 2023. https://nypost.com/2023/12/04/opinion/no-new-york-shouldnt-extend-the-adult-survivors -act/. 

Meko, Hurubie. “A Final Wave of Sex-Abuse Lawsuits as One-Year Window Closes in New York.” The New York Times, November 27, 2023. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/27/nyregion/adult-survivors-act-lawsuits.html. 

Ramey, Corinne, and Erin Ailworth. “The Law That Brought to Light a Flurry of Sexual-Assault Allegations.” The Wall Street Journal, November 28, 2023. https://www.wsj.com/us-news/new-york-law-sexual-assault-accusations-60daa252?page= 1.