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Most people who were abused as children assume the law closed the door a long time ago. In Texas, for many of these claims, it did not.
Section 16.0045(a) of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code gives thirty years from the day the cause of action accrues where the injury arises from conduct that violates:
Penal Code Section 22.011(a)(2), sexual assault of a child.
Section 22.021(a)(1)(B), aggravated sexual assault of a child.
Section 21.02, continuous sexual abuse of a young child or disabled individual.
Section 21.11, indecency with a child.
Section 43.05(a)(2) or (3), compelling prostitution of a child or a disabled individual.
Section 20A.02(a)(7)(A), (B), (C), (D) or (H), or Section 20A.02(a)(8) involving such an activity, the child and disabled-person sexual trafficking provisions.
Thirty years is a long time, and it is deliberately long. The Legislature extended it because it understood that people do not come forward on the schedule a two-year statute assumes.
Two clarifications, because both are commonly misreported and both matter.
There is no category in Section 16.0045 with no deadline. The section contains exactly two periods, thirty years and five years. Nothing in it is unlimited.
The section draws no distinction in its text between the person who committed the abuse and an institution sued for its own negligence in allowing it: a school, a church, a youth organization, a camp, a foster placement, a medical practice. Section 16.0045 is written entirely in terms of the conduct that caused the injury. Whether the thirty-year period reaches an institutional defendant is a question courts decide, not one the statutory text answers, and it is one of the first questions worth asking about a specific case.
Where an organization is involved, the claim against it is usually a negligence claim in its own right rather than a claim that the organization committed the abuse. The recurring theories are negligent hiring, negligent supervision, negligent retention after the organization received a report, and failure to follow its own policies or the reporting obligations that applied to it.
What decides these cases is almost always what the organization knew and when. Personnel files. Prior complaints and what was done with them. Internal correspondence. Transfer records, where a person was moved rather than removed. Insurance files. Those records exist far more often than people expect, because institutions keep records, and thirty years is not long enough for all of them to be gone. What evidence actually matters, and what disappears, is set out separately.
Section 16.0045(d) addresses that. Filing against an unknown defendant tolls the limitations period, provided the plaintiff proceeds with due diligence to discover the identity and amends the petition not later than the thirtieth day after the defendant is identified. The period begins running again on the date of the amendment.
Section 30.013 of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code provides a confidential identity, meaning a pseudonym and the absence of other identifying information, in a civil action based on conduct described as a felony under Penal Code Section 22.011 or 22.021. Read the definition carefully: the section defines “plaintiff” as an individual younger than eighteen seeking recovery, together with that plaintiff’s parents or legal guardian.
An adult bringing a claim today about abuse suffered as a child is not within that definition. For an adult survivor outside Chapter 98 and Chapter 98B, there is no Texas statute conferring the right, and proceeding by pseudonym is a request committed to the trial court’s discretion. We explain that in more detail on our page about suing without your name.
Every statute and case linked above was read at its primary source. Texas statutes change every legislative session and case law is constantly changing.
This page is general information about Texas law. It is not legal advice about your situation, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship.
Section 16.0045 has been amended several times, most recently in 2019, 2021 and 2023. Whether any of those amendments reaches conduct that occurred before the amendment, or revived a claim that had already expired, depends on applicability clauses that appear in the bills rather than in the code.
If you are trying to work out whether your claim is still alive, that is a question for a conversation, not for an assumption in either direction.
Schiffer Law Firm represents adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse in civil claims in Houston and across Texas.
There is no charge to talk, and no attorney’s fee unless there is a recovery.
Call 713-521-0059.
This page is general information about Texas law, not legal advice about your situation, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship.
For the offenses listed in Section 16.0045(a), yes, running from accrual. It is not thirty years for every claim connected to childhood abuse, and a negligence claim against an institution can be shorter.
Section 16.0045(d) tolls the period on filing against a John or Jane Doe, with a duty to substitute the real name within 30 days of identification.
No. A civil claim does not require a report, an arrest, a charge or a conviction. What a civil claim does need is evidence, and most of it is in the institution’s own records, which are on an automatic timer.
Section 30.013 gives a confidential identity only where the plaintiff is currently under 18. An adult survivor must ask the court.
