WEST virginia legislature

2020 regular session

ENROLLED

House Bill 4559

By Delegates Shott, Byrd, Pushkin, S. Brown, Fast, Steele and N. Brown

[Passed March 3, 2020; in effect ninety days from passage.]



 

AN ACT to amend and reenact §55-2-15 of the Code of West Virginia, 1931, as amended, relating to extending the limitation on civil actions against the perpetrator of sexual assault or sexual abuse upon a minor; adding any person or organization which aided, abetted, or concealed the sexual assault or abuse to the extended statute of limitations; allowing victims to initiate actions for sexual assault or sexual abuse against perpetrators only within four years of discovery regardless of age; and clarifying effect of 2020 amendments as to possible actions.

Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:

ARTICLE 2. LIMITATIONS OF ACTIONS AND SUITS.

§55-2-15. Special and general savings as to persons under disability.


(a) A personal action for damages resulting from sexual assault or sexual abuse of a person who was an infant at the time of the act or acts alleged, shall be brought against the perpetrator of the sexual assault or sexual abuse, within 18 years after reaching the age of majority. or within four years after discovery of the sexual assault or sexual abuse, whichever is longer. A personal action for damages resulting from sexual assault or sexual abuse of a person who was an infant at the time of the act or acts alleged shall be brought against a person or entity which aided, abetted, or concealed the sexual assault or sexual abuse within 18 years after reaching the age of majority.

(b) If any person to whom the right accrues to bring any personal action other than an action described in subsection (a) of this section, suit, or scire facias, or any bill to repeal a grant, shall be, at the time the same accrues, an infant or insane, the same may be brought within the like number of years after his or her becoming of full age or sane that is allowed to a person having no such impediment to bring the same after the right accrues, or after such acknowledgment as is mentioned in §55-2-8 of this this code, except that it shall in no case be brought after 20 years from the time when the right accrues.

(c) The amendments to this section enacted during the 2020 Regular Session of the Legislature are intended to extend the statute of limitations for all actions whether or not an earlier established period of limitation has expired.