California Sexual Abuse Statute of Limitations: The 2026 and 2027 Filing Deadlines

By Elizabeth Bertolino, of counsel, Veen Firm · Oct 29, 2026

If you were sexually abused in California and were told years ago that it was too late to sue, that may no longer be true. California has reopened two narrow windows for claims that had already expired. One closes on December 31, 2026. The other closes on December 31, 2027. After that, the doors shut again.

Before I started representing survivors in civil cases, I was a prosecutor, much of that time in the domestic violence unit. I have sat across from more survivors than I can count. So I know what I am asking when I tell someone that a deadline is coming. It is hard to tell people to rush to talk about the worst thing that ever happened to them. But if getting some measure of justice is something you want, you have to at least know that the window is closing.

What changed in California law

Normally, a sexual assault claim has to be filed within a set number of years. Once that period runs out, the claim is barred no matter how strong the evidence is. The legislature has twice decided that rule was doing real harm, because survivors often need years before they are ready to come forward, and because institutions that hid abuse were benefiting from the delay they helped create.

So California created two revival windows. A revival window is a limited period during which claims that had already expired can be filed anyway. It is not a permanent change. It is a short opportunity, and then it is gone.

The first window comes from a 2022 law, AB 2777. The second comes from AB 250, signed in October 2025. Both are now part of California Code of Civil Procedure section 340.16.

The shorthand I use: think of the 2026 window as the general one. It covers those years and those ages, and you can sue. The 2027 window is the one with the exceptions. It reaches further back in time, but it asks more of the facts.

What does an institutional cover-up actually look like?

People hear “cover-up” and picture shredded documents and a conspiracy. In my experience it is usually smaller and more ordinary than that, and it usually looks like an institution protecting its reputation.

One of my clients reported a rape that happened to her on a Catholic school campus. The school did not want the incident marring its reputation. So instead of acting on her report, they brought her abuser in for a meeting with her and asked her whether it would be good enough if he just apologized right there. Nothing went on the school’s records. He was not expelled. She started having panic attacks. She had been a straight-A student. Her grades fell, she dropped the degree she was doing well in, and eventually she left college altogether.

The assault happened in 2003. Under the old rules, her claim against that school was long gone. Under AB 250, she was able to bring it.

What that case also shows is how the harm compounds. There is the trauma of the assault itself. Then there is the second injury of people in positions of authority telling you, in effect, to be quiet because the institution does not want the stain. And then there is the financial reality, which is enormous once you calculate the difference between the career she was headed toward and the work she has been able to do since.

The institutions that come up most often in these cases are schools, churches, hospitals and medical providers, therapists, employers, and treatment facilities. What they have in common is an authority relationship. That relationship is often what makes the abuse possible, and it is also what makes the institution answerable for it.

Do I qualify for the December 31, 2026 deadline?

This is the broader of the two, and it is the one running out first. In general terms, it may apply if:

1. You were 18 or older when the assault happened.
2. The assault happened on or after January 1, 2009.
3. Your claim had already expired under the normal time limits.

This window does not require you to prove that anyone covered anything up. If the facts fit, the claim can be filed.

The catch is the date. A lawsuit has to be on file by December 31, 2026. Not a phone call, not a signed agreement with a lawyer. On file.

Do I qualify for the December 31, 2027 deadline?

AB 250 reaches further back. It has no earliest cutoff date, so assaults from the 1990s or early 2000s can fall inside it where the 2026 window would not reach them. In my own practice, this is the law that has let me file cases that would otherwise have been closed off.

What it asks in return, for a claim against an organization, is an allegation of a cover-up. The statute describes this as a concerted effort to hide evidence of sexual assault, to keep people silent, or to keep the information from becoming public.

One more limit worth knowing: AB 250 does not revive claims against government agencies. Cases against a city, a county, a sheriff’s department, or a public school district run on a different set of rules, including a short deadline to file a claim with the agency before any lawsuit. If your case involves a public entity, that timeline is separate and usually shorter.

These descriptions are general. Whether a particular claim qualifies depends on its facts, and that is a question for a lawyer looking at your situation.

What if I was abused as a child?

Childhood sexual abuse follows a separate track, under a different statute. The short version:

• There is generally no deadline at all for childhood sexual assault occurring on or after January 1, 2024.
• For abuse before that date, a claim can generally be brought until age 40, or within five years of the date you discovered that your adult injuries were caused by the abuse, whichever is later.
• The three-year revival window California opened for childhood abuse claims closed on December 31, 2022.

So if you were abused as a child and you are under 40, you may still have time without needing a revival window at all. If you are over 40 and only recently connected what happened to you with the damage it caused, the discovery rule may still leave the door open. It is worth asking rather than assuming.

My Title IX complaint was denied. Is that the end?

No, and this is one of the most common things survivors do not know.

A Title IX proceeding is the school’s internal process. A civil lawsuit is a separate path through the courts, with different standards and a different decision-maker. A school finding that did not go your way does not decide your civil case.

Almost nobody gets told this. When a Title IX hearing ends without findings that support them, most survivors conclude that no one believes them and try to put it behind them. I have watched that happen over and over, including in the pro bono Title IX clinic I help with at Stanford Law, where intakes have climbed.

The civil system is a different route to accountability. You decide whether to bring the case. You direct it. And it can reach the institution, not only the individual.

Why waiting until December is too late

The deadline is the date a lawsuit must be filed, not the date you have to make up your mind. Everything that has to happen before filing takes time.

You have to find an attorney. Then you have to find one you are actually comfortable with, which is not the same thing and often takes longer. That attorney has to understand your situation well enough to know which window applies and what has to be pleaded. Records have to be gathered. Institutional defendants have to be identified correctly, which is not always obvious years later when a school has changed hands or a practice has closed.

None of that happens in a week.

If your claim depends on the December 31, 2026 window, the realistic moment to make the call was already a while ago. The next best moment is now.

What to look for in an attorney

Someone who listens and empowers you. Someone who makes you feel your story will be heard. Someone you feel safe with and can trust. And, specifically, someone who understands trauma responses.

That last one matters more than people realize. Most of us know about fight, flight, and freeze. Fewer know about the fawn response, which is one of the most common and one of the least studied. It is when a survivor befriends or placates the person who harmed them, sometimes continuing a relationship with them, because internally it is easier to process the experience as something other than an assault.

A client of mine calls me lucky number 27, because she consulted 26 attorneys before me and every one of them turned her down. The reason was that she had kept responding to the doctor who was harassing her. She is a therapist herself. She had tried to explain to each of those attorneys why she answered the way she did, and she told me I was the first one who even used the word.

I have read those messages. On their face they do not look good. Read as a fawn response, they are clear: she was trying to neutralize the threat and steer the conversation back to something professional. He told her she oozed sex appeal. She answered that as a therapist she thought people found her easy to confide in.

She told me that talking to those 26 attorneys felt like being cross-examined, and that she had nearly given up because she was being retraumatized and starting to doubt herself. A consultation should not do that to you. If it does, that is information about the attorney, not about your case.

What happens if you call

The conversation is confidential. There is no cost and no obligation. You are not committing to a lawsuit by asking whether you have one.

What I need to know first is fairly basic: roughly when it happened, how old you were, and whether an institution was involved and how it responded if you reported. That is usually enough to tell which window may apply and whether it is worth looking further. You do not have to have documents ready, and you do not have to tell the whole story on a first call.

Alongside the revival claims, the cases I handle include police and jail abuse, workplace sexual harassment and gender or LGBTQ discrimination, injuries to adult performers and sex workers, serious STD transmission through concealment, and other gender violence claims including stalking, domestic violence, and image-based sexual abuse.

Common questions

Is it too late to sue for sexual abuse in California? Not necessarily. Two revival windows are open right now, one closing December 31, 2026 and one closing December 31, 2027, and childhood abuse claims follow separate rules that may still leave time.

What is the statute of limitations for sexual assault in California? For adults, the general rule is ten years from the assault or three years from discovering the resulting injury. The revival windows are exceptions to that for claims that already expired.

Do I need a police report? No. A civil case is separate from the criminal system. You can bring one whether or not you ever reported, and whether or not charges were filed.

Can I sue the school, church, hospital, or employer, or only the person who did it? Often both. Where an institution ignored reports, hid them, or protected the person, it can be held responsible alongside them.

What if the abuse happened decades ago? The 2027 window has no earliest cutoff date, so claims from the 1990s and early 2000s can fall inside it when the facts fit.

Does it cost anything to find out? No. Consultations are free and confidential.

What if I already talked to lawyers and they turned me down? It happens often, and it is not always about the strength of the case. It is worth one more conversation.

About the author

If you think one of these windows might apply to you, or you are not sure, contact the Veen Firm for a free and confidential case evaluation.

Elizabeth Bertolino is of counsel at the Veen Firm, where she represents survivors of sexual abuse, institutional misconduct, and civil rights violations across California. She is a former prosecutor who served in the domestic violence unit, and she is co-lead counsel in a federal civil rights class action on behalf of women subjected to an unlawful mass strip search in a San Francisco jail.

This article is general information about California law, not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Whether a particular claim qualifies for either revival window depends on its specific facts. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.