California Sexual Abuse Statute of Limitations: What Survivors Need to Know

California has no single deadline. For childhood sexual abuse occurring on or after January 1, 2024, there is no time limit to file a civil lawsuit. For earlier childhood abuse, the deadline is generally age 40 or five years from discovery, whichever is later. Adult survivors generally have 10 years from the assault or three years from discovery.

Many survivors do not connect what happened to them with a legal claim until years or decades later, and California law has been rewritten more than once to account for that. Older claims are not automatically closed, and the answer often depends on dates.

What California's Statute of Limitations Means for Sexual Abuse Cases

A statute of limitations is a legal deadline. It sets how long a person has to file a civil lawsuit, or how long the state has to bring criminal charges.

Sexual abuse cases move on two separate tracks. A civil claim is a lawsuit the survivor brings to seek money damages from the person who caused the harm and, often, from an institution that failed to prevent it. A criminal prosecution is a case the state brings against the perpetrator. The differences go further than deadlines, as our page on civil versus criminal cases explains.

Code of Civil Procedure section 340.1 governs civil claims for childhood sexual assault, meaning abuse before age 18. Code of Civil Procedure section 340.16 governs civil claims for sexual assault on or after a survivor's 18th birthday. Penal Code section 799 and the sections that follow set criminal time limits.

Civil Claims for Adult Sexual Assault: What CCP § 340.16 Says

For assault that occurred when the survivor was 18 or older, Code of Civil Procedure section 340.16 gives the later of two deadlines. A civil action must be brought:

"(1) Within 10 years from the date of the last act, attempted act, or assault with the intent to commit an act, of sexual assault against the plaintiff. (2) Within three years from the date the plaintiff discovers or reasonably should have discovered that an injury or illness resulted from an act, attempted act, or assault with the intent to commit an act, of sexual assault against the plaintiff."

The second deadline is the discovery rule: the clock runs from when the survivor knew, or reasonably should have known, that an injury or illness came from the assault.

AB 1619 (2018), effective January 1, 2019, extended the adult civil deadline from three years to 10 years. The statute also states that no criminal prosecution or conviction is needed for a civil claim, and that claims may be brought against "persons or entities other than the alleged person who committed the crime." More appears on our adult sexual assault page.

Civil Claims for Childhood Sexual Abuse: What CCP § 340.1 Says

Code of Civil Procedure section 340.1 now opens with the words "There is no time limit" for childhood sexual assault claims. That rule applies to abuse occurring on and after January 1, 2024.

Abuse that occurred on or before December 31, 2023 is governed by the earlier rule: until age 40, or five years from the date the survivor discovered or reasonably should have discovered that a psychological injury or illness was caused by the abuse, whichever is later. The newer rule did not revive any claim that had already expired.

AB 218 (2019), effective January 1, 2020, set that structure and opened a three-year revival window that closed December 31, 2022. Its closing does not affect claims still timely under the age-40 or five-year rules.

The statute covers claims against "any person or entity who owed a duty of care to the plaintiff," if a wrongful or negligent act by that person or entity was a legal cause of the abuse. This is how claims against schools, religious organizations, youth programs and other institutions are framed. See our pages on childhood sexual abuse and teacher sexual abuse.

Under section 340.1(b), a survivor who proves the abuse resulted from a cover up, defined as "a concerted effort to hide evidence relating to childhood sexual assault," may recover up to treble damages (three times the damages otherwise awarded) against a defendant found to have covered it up, unless another law prohibits it.

A plaintiff 40 or older at filing must file certificates of merit from the attorney and a licensed mental health practitioner. For public defendants, California generally removes the usual pre-suit claim requirement for these claims against local public entities, such as a school district. Claims against the State follow a different path, and the exemption there reaches only conduct on or after January 1, 2024. Whether a defendant is a local entity or the State affects which procedural rules apply, making that distinction an important threshold question in evaluating a claim.

Criminal Prosecution: How California's Criminal Statute of Limitations Works

Penal Code section 799 and the sections after it set how long the state has to charge someone.

SB 813 (2016), effective January 1, 2017, removed the time limit for prosecuting the most serious sexual offenses. Section 799(b) lists them, including forms of rape under Penal Code section 261, and specified forms of sodomy (section 286), oral copulation (section 287) and sexual penetration (section 289). Prosecution for these "may be commenced at any time." The rule applies to crimes committed on or after January 1, 2017, and to earlier crimes whose prior time limit had not yet run on that date.

For offenses whose earlier limit had already expired, older deadlines may still control, subject to exceptions, including one allowing prosecution within a limited period after a suspect is identified through DNA. The decision to file charges belongs to the district attorney. A civil claim does not depend on whether charges were brought.

Tolling: When the Clock Pauses or Resets

Tolling means pausing or extending a deadline because of particular circumstances. Each form is fact-specific.

• Delayed discovery. Part of both 340.1 and 340.16: the clock may not run until a survivor knew or reasonably should have known the harm came from the abuse.
• Minority. For childhood abuse, the age-based deadline is measured from adulthood.
• Psychological incapacity. California courts have recognized that in some cases a survivor was psychologically unable to recognize the link between the abuse and the injury, which may support an argument that the deadline was extended.
• Fraudulent concealment. Where a perpetrator or institution actively hid the abuse, a survivor may have grounds to argue the defendant cannot rely on the deadline.

General information is available through the California Courts Self-Help Guide.

AB 2777 and the CCP § 340.16(b)(3) Revival Window

The "Adult Survivors Act" is New York law, and its window closed in November 2023. It has no application in California.

California's AB 2777 (2022), the Sexual Abuse and Cover Up Accountability Act, wrote the revival window in Code of Civil Procedure section 340.16(b)(3). It revives adult sexual assault claims based on conduct on or after January 1, 2009, which "would have been barred solely because the applicable statute of limitations has or had expired." Such claims "may be commenced until December 31, 2026." The statute excludes a claim litigated to finality before January 1, 2023, and a claim settled by a written agreement entered into before January 1, 2023.

This window is separate from the AB 218 window, which closed December 31, 2022. It also differs from a later provision running January 1, 2026 to December 31, 2027, which does not reach public entities. Two older windows in section 340.16, subdivisions (c) and (d), applied only to specific university clinics and closed in 2020 and 2021.

What These Deadlines Mean in Practice, and When to Seek Legal Advice

Whether a claim is open turns on when the abuse occurred, the survivor's age, the type of conduct, when the survivor connected the harm to it, who the defendants are, and whether tolling applies. The discovery rule, an open revival window and institutional-defendant theories can each change the answer. This article is not legal advice and does not predict any outcome.

An initial conversation with an attorney does not require recounting what happened; the general timeline is enough. Readers can also use the State Bar of California Lawyer Referral Service. See also our page on confidentiality in abuse claims.

If You Have Questions, Privately

Survivors in California may have civil remedies available, including claims against individuals and, in some circumstances, against institutions that owed a duty of care. California law allows a survivor to seek compensation for emotional harm, therapy and medical costs, lost income, and other damages the law permits, along with the acknowledgment and justice a civil claim may provide. Because California has extended deadlines and reopened expired claims, options may exist even when the abuse happened many years ago.

An initial conversation with Justice for Survivors is confidential, free, and carries no obligation. Attorneys can explain how California's deadlines generally work and what questions are typically relevant to evaluating a potential claim. Nothing needs to be organized first, and no one has to describe what happened to ask a question. A private conversation with an attorney is an opportunity to discuss how these statutes may relate to a specific timeline.

To speak with an attorney about California's sexual abuse deadlines, call Justice for Survivors at (866) 694-1630 for a confidential, no-obligation conversation, or reach out through the website if that feels safer.