Bill extending statute of limitations for childhood sexual abuse heads to Missouri Senate

The legislation has once again been bundled with a more controversial bill that would reduce how long people have to file personal injury, uninsured motorist claims

BY: Steph Quinn

Missouri Independent

The Missouri House on Wednesday voted to advance a bill that would extend the statute of limitations for survivors of childhood sexual abuse to file civil action.

The bill, sponsored by Republican state Rep. Brian Seitz of Branson, would also decrease the statute of limitations for personal injury lawsuits and civil claims against insurance companies for uninsured or underinsured motorists.

Survivors of childhood sexual abuse currently have only 10 years after they turn 21 to file suit, which advocates argue isn't enough time because it can take decades for people to understand that they were abused. Seitz's bill would give them until they turn 41.

With no change in those limits since 2004 and "powerful lobbies that used to oppose this bill now in support," Seitz said, "we will do what we can at this time."

"The perfect fix," he said, "is no statute of limitations for victims of sexual abuse."

The House passed the bill 95-12, with 39 lawmakers voting present. It now heads to the Senate for consideration.

Seitz's legislation last year extending the childhood sexual abuse statute of limitations was added as an amendment to a bill reducing the window for filing personal injury lawsuits, sponsored by Republican state Rep. Matthew Overcast of Ava. A spokesperson for the Missouri Insurance Coalition told The Independent at the time that the amendment was added to assuage concerns about unintentional effects of the tort reform bill on the childhood statute of limitations.

This year, Seitz introduced the legislation as a stand-alone bill, and tort reform elements similar to Overcast's 2025 bill were added in the House Commerce Committee.

Seitz's bill would not change the current five-year statute of limitations for survivors to take civil action against institutions that facilitated their abuse, such as summer camps or boarding schools.

Missouri is one of 18 states that sets the statute of limitations under 35, according to Child USA, and dozens of states have passed reforms on the statute of limitations for survivors in recent years.

A Senate committee passed a separate bill last month, sponsored by Republican state Sen. Brad Hudson of Cape Fair, that would eliminate the statute of limitations for childhood sexual abuse survivors. It has not yet come up for debate in the full Senate.

This is the fourth year in a row that an effort by Seitz to extend the statute of limitations for childhood sexual assault has advanced. The bill was partly inspired by survivors of abuse at the Christian sports camp Kanakuk Kamps near Branson.

In the previous three years, these efforts have fallen victim to concerns from insurance lobbyists that it would expose them to older claims that are costly and difficult to defend against.

Seitz described the bill as the culmination of "years of bipartisan work."

During House debate this week, Republican state Rep. Bryant Wolfin of Ste. Genevieve asked why the tort provisions were added.

"It seems like we might have log-rolled this issue onto your bill, which was fantastic, to potentially try to get something that might be a little more controversial along the line," Wolfin said.

Democratic state Rep. Will Jobe of Independence said that victims in personal injury cases often have to wait for criminal charges against defendants to be resolved before filing civil actions.

Since the statute of limitations for most felonies is three years, Jobe said, victims could be left with little or no time to seek redress.

"We're attaching this wonderful and absolutely needed bill to something that is really going to hurt people," Jobe said.

Before Wednesday's vote, Seitz said the rights of survivors of childhood sexual abuse "always was and remains the primary portion" of the bill.

Holding institutions accountable

In addition to abolishing the statute of limitations for survivors, the Senate bill sponsored by Hudson would add language that survivors can sue institutions that played a role in their abuse "at any time."

"By assigning an arbitrary statute of limitations for childhood sexual abuse, we are siding with abusers and perpetrators over survivors and making Missouri a sanctuary state for pedophiles," Hudson said during a committee hearing last month.

Kayla Onder, a St. Louis-based attorney who leads her firm's sexual abuse department, told The Independent that most survivors don't come forward until decades after their abuse — often because they didn't realize that they had been abused.

"Usually you have a client that was diagnosed with something, they're receiving those mental health treatments, and they start to realize, 'What I'm experiencing now isn't just a random break in my mental health,'" Onder said. "It's layered from the abuse I experienced as a child."

Onder said the legislation lawmakers are considering will help strengthen survivors' voice and help them find closure.

"When you're sexually assaulted, especially as a child, you might not have a physical injury that you can see then and there at that moment," she said. "But it doesn't mean that an injury did not occur."