Childhood Sex-abuse Victims Have 12 Years -- Not 2 -- to Sue State

By Randy Ludlow
Columbus Dispatch
May 14, 2015

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2015/05/14/supreme-court-juvenile-sexual-assault.html

A divided Ohio Supreme Court ruled today that children sexually assaulted at state institutions have 12 years — instead of two years — to sue state agencies for damages.

In a 4-3 decision, the court majority ruled that the 12-year statute of limitations for filing sexual-assault claims from age 18 overrides a law requiring lawsuits against the state to be filed within two years.

Those victimized by teachers, coaches, clergy, local juvenile-detention-center employees and others have until age 30 to sue their molesters and their private- or public-sector employers for damages.

But those molested by state employees in state institutions had only until age 20 to file lawsuits in the Court of Claims prior to today’s ruling.

The justices heard arguments a year ago that the differing deadlines — from the time victims become adults — shield state agencies from damage claims filed by victims who often need years to "process" the trauma they suffered.

A woman who says she was molested by two juvenile-prison guards at age 14 had sought to overturn a Franklin County Court of Appeals ruling that she could not seek damages because she failed to sue within two years of turning 18.

Uranus "Rainy" Watson, 28, said she was raped in 2000 at the now-closed Scioto Juvenile Correctional Facility in Delaware. The Dispatch typically does not publish the names of rape victims, but Watson petitioned the court to use her real name. It still must be determined if she has a right to sue.

Amid a furor over children being molested by clergy members, legislators enacted a law in 2006 instituting a 12-year statute of limitations for the filing of lawsuits over childhood sex abuse, setting up the conflict in laws.

In the majority opinion, Justice Paul E. Pfeifer that the General Assembly allowed for “no distinction between public and private” when it crafted the law, thus making state agencies subject to claims by childhood sex abuse victims.

“Thus, the very definition of childhood sexual abuse includes the wrongful conduct of state employees,” Pfeifer wrote.

Justices Terrence O’Donnell, Judith L. French and Sharon L. Kennedy dissented in the ruling.

The “two-year statute of limitations for claims against the state arising out of childhood sexual abuse is rationally related to legitimate state interests of discovering and correcting criminal conduct of its employees in an expeditious and timely manner and of conserving the state’s fiscal resources,” O’Donnell wrote.

rludlow@dispatch.com