In New York, where state laws that extended the time to file sex abuse suits have lapsed, plaintiffs have found one remaining tool: Section 10-1105 of New York City’s administrative code.
The provision, known as the Victims of Gender-Motivated Violence Protection Law, has provided the basis for recent lawsuits against the Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler; the luxury real estate agents Tal and Oren Alexander; New York City’s Department of Correction; and the hip-hop mogul Sean Combs, who is a defendant in four.
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Several judges, including Judge Kaplan, have ruled that the amendment cannot revive those older cases. At least one other jurist ruled differently, allowing claims from the 1980s to proceed.
Helene M. Weiss, a lawyer who represents plaintiffs in sexual abuse cases, said decisions such as Judge Kaplan’s have jeopardized the future of the amendment, making some lawyers wary of taking gender-motivated-violence cases at all.
The purpose of this kind of legislation, she said, was to acknowledge how common it is for sexual assault victims to not come forward with their claims until many years later.
“This is just a major step backward,” she said of Judge Kaplan’s ruling, “in what we believe the City Council was trying to do.”