In Rubenstein v. Doe No. 1, a 4-3 Supreme Court today finds untimely a 34-year-old woman’s claim that she was sexually molested by her high school cross-country and track coach almost 20 years earlier. Interpreting statutes of limitations in the Code of Civil Procedure and the Tort Claims Act in the Government Code, the majority opinion by Justice Ming Chin notes that the plaintiff could have timely sued if the defendant hadn’t been a public entity or if the sexual abuse had occurred after 2008. The opinion says that legislative changes, including the overruling of a 2007 Supreme Court decision, were “measured actions that protected public entities from potential liability for stale claims regarding conduct allegedly occurring before January 1, 2009, in which the public entity had no ability to do any fiscal planning, or opportunity to investigate the matter and take remedial action.”
Justice Kathryn Werdegar, joined by Justices Goodwin Liu and Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar, dissents. She says that “the majority offers public entities the practical equivalent of immunity in the very set of cases that prompted the Legislature to amend [the general statute of limitations for childhood sexual abuse actions] — cases in which the psychological harm caused by childhood sexual abuse is first discovered in adulthood,” a result that “cannot fairly be attributed to the Legislature, which amended [the statute of limitations] over the strong objection of public school districts.”
The court reverses the Fourth District, Division One, Court of Appeal. It agrees with a 2006 Second District, Division Two, opinion, which it quotes at length. The court also disapproves a 2009 decision by the Second District, Division Three.