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Article: Remedies for Victims of Sexual Abuse Article: Connecticut version of Remedies article Legal Resources for Victims of Sexual Abuse
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District of Columbia |
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The D.C. statute of limitations for personal injury actions provides that an action must be brought within three years "from the time the right to maintain the action accrues." D.C. Code § 12-301 (1995). If the victim is a minor when the injury occurs, he or she may bring the action within three years of his/her eighteenth birthday. D.C. Code § 12-302 (a)(1) (1995).
In Cevenini v. Archbishop of Washington, 707 A.2d 768 (D. C. 1998), the Court held that the statute of limitations expires 3 years from the injury or when the victims achieved their majority (age 18). The Court refused to enlarge the scope of the discovery rule and refused to reach the issue of whether "discovery" required an appreciation of the connection between the injury and the abuse. The court stated that under both the general rule . . . and the discovery rule exception, the statute of limitations begins to run when a plaintiff either has actual knowledge of a cause of action or is charged with knowledge of that cause of action. Diamond v. Davis, supra, 680 A.2d at 372; see also Burns v. Bell, 409 A.2d 614, 615 (D.C. 1979) (where the fact of injury is readily discernible, the SOL begins to run when the injury occurs"). In Farris v. Compton, 652 A.2d 49 (D.C. App. 1994) the court applied the discovery rule to extend the SOL in a repressed memory case. The Cevenini court distinguished Farris by reasoning that the repression of memory was total in Farris but that the victims in Cevenini had some memory of the abuse. The victims in the Cevenini case were represented by Attorney Gregory L. Murphy of Washington, D.C. Resource:The D.C. Rape Crisis Center
Updated April 13, 2002. Copyright Susan K. Smith 1996-2002 |
