Doug Rochen Examines Federal Civil Rights Gap Impacting Survivors’ Access to Justice
DiCello Levitt Partner Doug Rochen was published in the Daily Journal on March 31, 2026, for his article titled, “Childhood Abuse Survivors Face a Federal Deadline That Makes No Sense.”
He writes, “In the past decade, numerous U.S. state legislatures have enacted reforms extending or abolishing civil statutes of limitations (SOL) for childhood sexual abuse (CSA). Nineteen states and the federal government have eliminated these limitations. However, a significant flaw persists in federal civil rights law: when a survivor files a claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against a state actor, the claim is governed not by the state’s CSA-specific limitations period, but by the state’s general personal injury limitations, typically two or three years.
This structure, established by Wilson v. Garcia and Owens v. Okure, produces inconsistent outcomes. Survivors may have extended or unlimited time to pursue state-law negligence claims, yet only two years to bring federal claims arising from the same abuse.”
Read the full article in the Daily Journal.
