New state law revives previously barred abuse claims

ALBANY, N.Y. — Hundreds, possibly thousands of people who say they were molested as children in New York state are expected to go to court this week to sue their alleged abusers and the institutions they say failed them, including the Catholic Church, the Boy Scouts, public schools and hospitals.

It’s all because of a landmark state law passed this year that creates a oneyear window allowing people to file civil lawsuits that had previously been barred by the state’s statute of limitations, one of the nation’s most restrictive, that had prevented many victims from seeking justice for decadesold abuse.

Many won’t even wait a day. Michael Schall, 64, who says his scoutmaster in the Buffalo suburbs molested him for two years beginning in 1968, will be among those filing suits early Wednesday. It’s not about money, Schall said, it’s about standing up for the “sweet, naive” kid he once was, who had nowhere to turn.

“This is my chance to say: this happened to me,” said Schall, who now lives in Portland, Ore. “It’s affected me in so many different ways in my life, in who I am. This seems freeing. It’s like I’m bringing something to light that’s been held in the darkness for so long.”

Wednesday could begin a year of financial reckoning for many large institutions that care for children. A similar law passed in 2002 in California resulted in Catholic dioceses there paying $1.2 billion in legal settlements.

The Boy Scouts of America said in a statement that it supports allowing victims to sue individual abusers and organizations even if the statute of limitations had expired — but only if the organization concealed or withheld evidence of the abuse.

The organization has acknowledged that sexabuse litigation poses a financial impact and said it’s now “working with experts and exploring all options available so we can live up to our social and moral responsibility to fairly compensate victims who suffered abuse.”

The law creating the litigation window also extends the statute of limitations for molestation going forward, giving new victims until age 55 to file lawsuits and until age 28 to seek criminal charges, compared to 23 under the old statute.