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Newsletter -
Fall 2008
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Prior to New Jersey’s enactment of the Child Sexual Abuse Act (hereinafter “CSAA”), the ability of victims of childhood sexual abuse to recover civilly for their damages were limited to common law tort remedies and subject to a two year statute of limitations. R.L. v. Voytac, 954 A.2d. 527, 533 (N.J. Super. App. Div. 2008) (citing Hardwicke v. Am. Boychoir Sch., 188, N.J. 69, 84 (2006)). To avoid the potentially harsh reality of the rule of law, the Legislature enacted the CSAA, which provides in pertinent part:
In any civil action for injury or illness based on sexual abuse, the cause of action shall accrue at the time of reasonable discovery of the injury and its causal relationship to the act of sexual abuse. Any such action shall be brought within two years after reasonable discovery.
N.J.S.A. 2A:61B-1b. The issue presented to the Appellate Division in R.L. v. Voytac was to determine the triggering event for purposes of determining the accrual of the statute of limitations under the CSAA.
R.L. commenced suit on February 13, 2004 at the age of twenty five. R.L. alleged that defendant Voytac (R.L.’s step-father) sexually abused him during the time period between 1987 and 1990, when R.L., was between the ages of 10 and 12. While R.L. readily admitted that he possessed knowledge of the abuse at the time that it was committed, he denied knowledge that his diagnosed ailments of depression, gender confusion and cross-dressing were proximately caused by the sexual abuse he suffered as a young child. Indeed, in 1999, while in a serious relationship with a female friend, R.L. began suffering flashbacks of the childhood abuse during sexual activities.
In September 1999, R.L. revealed to his mother the sexual abuse he suffered at the hands of his step father. His mother advised R.L. in response to seek psychological counseling because it was likely that the abuse had detrimentally affected him. R.L., however, never sought treatment until almost three years later in 2002, only after experiencing an increase in his cross-dressing activities, feelings of gender confusion, and an increased interest in transgender pornography. During R.L.’s psychological treatment in February 2002 he claims to have first discovered link between the abuse and his sexual identity issues and psychological problems.
Voytac moved to dismiss R.L.’s complaint on statute of limitations grounds. Voytac argued that R.L. knew of the causal relationship of the abuse to the alleged psychological injury in September 1999, when his mother informed him. The Trial Court agreed with Voytac and dismissed plaintiff’s complaint.
The Appellate Division reversed. It opined that a “person’s awareness of an injury or deleterious condition does not always equate with the accrual of a cause of action.” Instead, the Court declared that under the CSAA, “a claimant may have a conscious memory of the sexual abuse, but may not have ‘reasonably discovered’ that the serious psychological and mental illness injury from which the claimant suffers is caused by that sexual abuse.” The Appellate Division decided that the trial court erroneously dismissed the complaint because it focused on the fact that R.L. possessed knowledge of the abuse, and had a flashback of that abuse while engaging in sexual activity with his girlfriend in 1999. Those facts, according to the Court, were not enough to establish that R.L’s cause of action accrued in 1999. Instead, the Court found that it was only while R.L. was undergoing psychotherapy in 2002 that he could appreciate that the abuse caused him emotional injury.
The Appellate Court’s decision constitutes the first definitive interpretation of the statute of limitations provision CSAA. Based upon the remedial nature of the statute, the Court opined that its provisions must be interpreted broadly and liberally. The Court’s analysis of the issue was similar in nature to the analysis utilized in review of summary judgment motions. Without explicitly expressing its analytical framework, the Court implicitly construed all reasonable inferences of fact in favor the non-moving party, which in this case was R.L. Yet, the Court’s opinion fails to indicate whether its conclusion of when R.L. first discovered the proximate cause relationship constitutes the law of the case, or whether the issue could go before a jury.
While the R.L. Court’s opinion does not eviscerate the statute of limitations provision contained in CSAA, it severely limits a defendant’s ability to obtain a summary dismissal on the basis of time. What remains open is whether the factual component of the statute of limitations issue will become a jury question in the future.
Eric S. Schlesinger
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