The Colorado Supreme Court on Tuesday considered whether a new state law that created a three-year window for people to sue over years-old childhood sexual abuse violates the state constitution.
The case came before the state Supreme Court after a woman used Colorado’s new Child Sexual Abuse Accountability Act to file a lawsuit in which she claimed she was repeatedly sexually abused between 2001 and 2005 by David James O’Neill, basketball and softball coach at Rangeview High School in the Aurora Public Schools district. The woman was 14 when the abuse began, she claimed in the civil case.
O’Neill’s attorney did not immediately return a request for comment Tuesday, but in court filings, O’Neill has denied the allegations.
The new law, which took effect Jan. 1, 2022, allows for adults who were sexually assaulted as children to bring lawsuits against both their assailant, and in some cases, organizations that ran youth programs. The law opened a three-year window for such lawsuits for abuse that allegedly happened between 1960 and 2022, including claims that would otherwise have been barred by the statute of limitations.
Aurora Public Schools is challenging the new law on the basis that it violates the Colorado Constitution’s prohibition on retrospective legislation. The constitution specifically forbids lawmakers from passing legislation that is “retrospective in its operation.”
“We don’t show disrespect to the survivors of child sexual assault by recognizing the constitution places limits on what the General Assembly can do,” Stuart Stuller, an attorney for the school district, told the justices during oral argument Tuesday. “The General Assembly can do many things but what it cannot do is take the priorities of 2022 and transport them back in time.”
An attorney for the woman who sued, Robert Friedman, argued that the law is constitutional in part because there is an overriding public interest in allowing victims of child sexual abuse to seek civil remedies. He also argued that the school district doesn’t have the standing to challenge the law based on the retrospective claim because that part of the state constitution wasn’t designed to apply to public entities.
“It’s there to protect the rights of the people against the government,” he told the justices. “It’s not to protect the government against the people.”
Several uninvolved organizations offered their thoughts on the law to the justices. The Catholic Church’s Archdiocese of Denver sided with the school district, while Child USA, a nonprofit organization, supported the woman’s claim.
The Colorado General Assembly submitted a brief to the justices that argued the law was constitutional and that the lawmakers acted within their authority.
“The General Assembly carefully calibrated the Act’s retroactive provisions to address the ongoing harms wrought by child sexual abuse,” the brief reads. “This careful tailoring does not offend the Colorado Constitution’s retrospectivity clause and is squarely within the General Assembly’s police powers.”
The justices will now deliberate on the case; decisions usually take several weeks to months.
Sign up to get crime news sent straight to your inbox each day.
