New York lawmakers who want to open another lookback window under the Child Victims Act said Tuesday they will first explore how to strengthen the policy and ensure survivors of childhood sexual abuse obtain justice.
About 11,000 civil suits were filed under the 2019 Child Victims Act, which allowed survivors of childhood sexual assault to take their abusers to court for crimes that took place before they turned 18 — waiving the statute of limitations for a limited time. The window closed in 2021.
Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal, who sponsored the law, said nearly $1 billion is waiting to be paid to a few thousand survivors across the state as defendants and their insurance companies try to stall paying settlements.
“You’ve got the Catholic church on the one hand, which is saying, ‘This is the insurer’s responsibility,’ and then the insurance companies, on the other hand, saying that the church, in effect, defrauded them and knew about these decades of abuses and so therefore, they are excluded from coverage,” Hoylman-Sigal said Tuesday.
The senator and Assembly sponsor Linda Rosenthal have said they want to reopen the window of justice for adult survivors of child-sex abuse. A proposed bill would permanently end the civil statute of limitations for crimes related to childhood sexual assault.
Hoylman-Sigal said the majority of survivors who filed cases under the 2019 law were white, and many survivors in poor or underserved communities did not know about the policy and deserve their days in court.
“The innocence that was stolen from these individuals can never be repaid, but at the very least, they should have a semblance of justice,” the senator said.
Hoylman-Sigal and Rosenthal recently asked the state Department of Financial Services to step in and enforce state guidelines to restart negotiations between defendants — frequently the Catholic Church — and their insurers. The agency replied that the state’s hands remain tied as cases move through the courts.
“DFS has and continues to take this issue extremely seriously,” according to a statement from the department Tuesday. “At present, we are actively monitoring ongoing litigation as the courts seek to answer important legal questions about insurers’ contractual liabilities and will hold insurers accountable for their obligations as appropriate.”
Rosenthal said the courts need to deal with the issue immediately.
“This is not fair to the survivors and those and the people who brought their cases to court, summoning up a lot of courage to do that, and they should not be further stalled in their quest,” she said. “…The church needs to ‘come to Jesus,’ as they say, and take care of all of those who are harmed.”
Both Hoylman-Sigal and Rosenthal said other lawmakers have asked them about the prospects of passing additional legislation to reopen the window, or make a permanent change.
Rosenthal said the policy could be tweaked to have tighter deadline to force cases to conclude sooner.
“We thought we had done it properly,” she said of the Child Victims Act, which later inspired the Adult Survivors Act. “We could put a tighter time frame for things have to be deicded within a certain period instead of being dragged out forever because that is not justice for the survivors.”
Both lawmakers said the state can strike a balance between setting parameters to encourage a settlement in ongoing litigation.
“I’m not sure what that might look like, but I hope that courts come to a swift decision and allow these cases to proceed,” Hoylman-Sigal said. “I’m hopeful that the courts compel each party to come forward with their evidentiary material and make a call that helps these survivors.”
Stephen Jimenez, a survivor of clergy sex abuse, says the church needs to reckon with its failures, adding a majority of cases have not resulted in settlement.
“It’s somewhere in the neighborhood of maybe 7% of the cases filed in New York state,” he said. “Five years have passed and nothing has happened. And you know, this is just, it’s prolonging the pain and suffering for survivors.”
Jimenez said it’s the latest obstacle in securing justice for victims of childhood sexual assault that’s been years in the making. And survivors and lawmakers say they won’t back down and continue the work when they return to Albany next year.
“It really took time and it took effort, but this is not a fight we’re going to back away from,” he said.
