WILMINGTON (DE)
WRDE - NBC CoastTV [Milton DE]
June 24, 2024
By Madeleine Overturf
Dover DE – Survivors of child sexual abuse who were previously barred from filing lawsuits due to the expiration of the former civil statute of limitations may soon be able to seek damages under new legislation.
House Bill 417, introduced by Laurel-area state Rep. Tim Dukes, would permit affected individuals to file claims in Superior Court at any time. This proposed legislation revisits the Child Victims Act enacted in 2007, which eliminated the statute of limitations on child sexual abuse legal claims going forward and allowed a two-year window for retroactive lawsuits.
Rep. Dukes says he sponsored the bill after a constituent reached out, explaining that they had been sexually abused as a child but were unable to seek civil damages because they missed the two-year filing period. Dukes says while the Child Victims Act allowed claims for some survivors, it excluded those abused as children in the 1990s and up to July 9, 2005. For example, the bill describes that an 8-year-old child sexually abused in 1999 would be 33 today. That child would have been only 16 when Delaware had its two-year window for legal claims, leaving many without recourse.
The legislation notes that the most recent example of such legal reform is Maryland’s S.B. 686, “The Child Victims Act of 2023,” signed by the governor on April 11, 2023, which retroactively removed the statute of limitations for all claims of sexual abuse of a minor in that state.
The bill filing comes just days after a 74-year-old woman filed a lawsuit against the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales for an alleged 1960s rape in an Eastern Shore church. Delaware’s Child Victims Act was enacted in the era where hundreds of allegations of child sexual abuse by Catholic priests were unearthed.
House Bill 417 was voted out of the House Judiciary Committee last week and now heads to the full House for consideration.