If you are considering a civil sexual abuse claim in California, the short answer is that the law may still be open to you, often many years after the abuse. A civil claim is a lawsuit a survivor brings for compensation against the person responsible and, in many cases, the institution that allowed it to happen.
People usually reach this page with questions rather than a plan. Some are unsure whether what happened to them "counts" legally. Some assume it is too late. Some are trying to understand how a claim against a school, a church, a youth program or a healthcare provider differs from a claim against one person. Some are reading on behalf of a child. All of these are ordinary starting points, and none of them requires a decision today.
Justice for Survivors is a California law firm whose work is civil claims for survivors of sexual abuse and sexual assault, with particular attention to childhood abuse and abuse inside institutions. This page explains how those claims work under California law, in the order a survivor tends to need it.
What a Civil Sexual Abuse Claim Is: How It Differs from a Criminal Case
A civil claim belongs to the survivor. In a civil lawsuit, the survivor is the plaintiff, the person who brings the case. The defendant is the person or organization being sued. A criminal case is different: it is brought by the State of California through a prosecutor, and its purpose is punishment. A civil case seeks damages, meaning money awarded to compensate for harm.
The two systems also use different standards of proof. A criminal conviction requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt. A civil claim is generally decided by a preponderance of the evidence, which means "more likely than not." The civil system does not require a police report or a prosecution as a precondition. (Our page on civil vs. criminal cases covers this in more detail.)
California law gives survivors a direct civil cause of action. Under Cal. Civ. Code § 1708.5, a person who commits a sexual battery is liable for damages, including general damages, special damages and punitive damages. In plain terms:
- Special (economic) damages cover measurable losses, such as therapy and medical costs or lost income.
- General (non-economic) damages cover harm that has no receipt, such as emotional distress and loss of enjoyment of life.
- Punitive damages may be available in some cases to punish especially wrongful conduct.
Section 1708.5 also says its remedies are in addition to any other rights the law provides, which is why claims against institutions can sit alongside a claim against the individual.
California's Statutes of Limitations for Sexual Abuse Civil Claims
A statute of limitations is the deadline for filing a lawsuit. California's deadlines in this area have changed several times, and which rule applies usually depends on when the abuse happened and how old the survivor was. Because many survivors connect what happened to them with a legal claim only years later, the law includes a discovery rule: the clock may start when a survivor discovers, or reasonably should have discovered, that an injury resulted from the abuse, rather than on the date the abuse occurred.
What follows is the general framework under current California law. The authoritative text is at leginfo.legislature.ca.gov, and deadlines are fact-specific. Nothing here means any particular claim is open or closed.
Abuse that happened when the survivor was under 18 (Cal. Code Civ. Proc. § 340.1).
- Abuse on or after January 1, 2024: there is no time limit to file.
- Abuse on or before December 31, 2023: the rule that applies is the law as it stood at the end of 2023, set by AB 218 (2019). The survivor may file until age 40, or within five years of discovering that the abuse caused psychological injury, whichever is later. The no-time-limit rule did not reach back to earlier abuse.
- AB 218 also opened a three-year revival window for older claims. That window closed December 31, 2022.
Two other features of section 340.1 matter. A plaintiff who is 40 or older when the case is filed must file certificates of merit, signed by the attorney and a licensed mental health practitioner. And a survivor who proves a defendant covered up the abuse of a minor, meaning a concerted effort to hide evidence, may recover up to treble damages from that defendant unless another law prohibits it.
Sexual assault that happened at age 18 or older (Cal. Code Civ. Proc. § 340.16). An adult survivor generally has the later of 10 years from the last act of sexual assault, or three years from discovering that an injury resulted from it. The statute is explicit that no criminal prosecution or conviction is required.
The adult revival window that is open now. AB 2777 (Stats. 2022, Ch. 442), the Sexual Abuse and Cover Up Accountability Act, added a revival window to section 340.16(b)(3). It revives adult sexual assault claims based on conduct on or after January 1, 2009 that would otherwise be barred only because the deadline had passed. Those claims may be filed until December 31, 2026. The only claims it does not revive are those litigated to finality before January 1, 2023, and those resolved by a written settlement agreement entered into before January 1, 2023. This window is California law; it is sometimes confused online with a New York statute whose deadline passed in 2023, and that New York deadline has nothing to do with California claims.
A separate revival window, open January 1, 2026 through December 31, 2027, revives certain adult claims against private entities. It expressly excludes public entities. The two windows work differently on that point, which is one reason the identity of each defendant matters early. Our guide to the California statute of limitations walks through these dates side by side.
Who Can Be Held Liable in a California Civil Sexual Abuse Case
Liability often reaches further than the person who committed the abuse. The individual is directly liable under section 1708.5. Section 340.1 also expressly covers claims against any person or entity that owed the survivor a duty of care and whose wrongful or negligent act was a legal cause of the abuse.
In practice, that can include employers, schools, religious organizations, youth-serving nonprofits, foster care settings, healthcare providers and public agencies. The common legal theories are:
- Negligent hiring: an organization placed someone in a position of trust when it knew, or should have known, of the risk that person posed.
- Negligent supervision and retention: an organization failed to reasonably watch over an employee or volunteer, or kept them on after warning signs.
- Failure to protect: an organization responsible for a child's or a patient's safety did not take reasonable steps to keep them safe.
- Respondeat superior: a Latin phrase meaning "let the superior answer." It is a doctrine that can make an employer responsible for acts of an employee within the scope of the job. In abuse cases its reach is limited and fact-dependent, so the negligence theories above usually carry more weight.
Institutions matter for a practical reason as well. They are more likely than an individual to have insurance and assets, which affects whether a judgment can actually be collected. Our pages on institutional sexual abuse and school sexual abuse look at specific settings.
When the defendant is a public entity. The Government Claims Act, which begins at Cal. Gov. Code § 900, often requires a written claim to be presented to a public entity before a lawsuit, generally within six months. Childhood sexual abuse claims are treated differently, and how differently depends on the type of public entity:
- Local public entities (for example, a school district, city or county): a childhood sexual abuse claim under section 340.1 is exempt from the claim-presentation requirement, regardless of when the abuse occurred, and a local entity cannot substitute its own claim procedure.
- The State of California and its agencies: the exemption comes from section 340.1 itself and reaches only conduct on or after January 1, 2024.
Because the rules split this way, the first question in any case involving a government defendant is whether that defendant is a local entity or part of the State. For adult assault claims against a public entity, the claim-presentation requirement may still apply, and how the open 2026 revival window interacts with public defendants is not settled. Those are questions to work through on specific facts.