Illinois Sexual Abuse Settlement Calculator

Illinois permanently removed the civil statute of limitations for childhood sexual abuse claims through 735 ILCS 5/13-202.2(f), which took effect January 1, 2014. Under this provision, an action for damages based on childhood sexual abuse — an act occurring when the victim was under 18 — may be commenced at any time. This applies going forward without a filing deadline; there is no age cutoff and no discovery-based clock to track.

The removal is prospective, not retroactive. The statute's own text limits it to actions that "would not have been time barred under any statute of limitations or statute of repose prior to the effective date" of the amendment. In other words, if a childhood abuse claim was already time-barred before January 1, 2014, this provision does not bring it back to life. The Illinois Supreme Court reached the same non-retroactivity conclusion for the materially identical 2003 version of this amendment in Doe v. Diocese of Dallas, 234 Ill. 2d 393 (2009).

For abuse experienced as an adult (18 or older at the time), Illinois applies the general 2-year personal injury limitation period under 735 ILCS 5/13-202, with two notable exceptions described below. Illinois has never enacted a temporary revival window of the kind some other states have used to reopen claims that had already expired — so whether an adult claim is still viable depends on the ordinary rules, not on a special filing period. Anyone weighing an Illinois civil claim should have the specific dates and circumstances of the abuse reviewed by an attorney, since the applicable rule depends heavily on the victim's age at the time and, for adult claims, on whether the perpetrator was criminally convicted.

Childhood sexual abuse (under 18 at the time): No time limit applies. 735 ILCS 5/13-202.2(f) states: "an action for damages based on childhood sexual abuse or a violation of Section 10-9 of the Criminal Code of 2012 in which the victim is a minor may be commenced at any time." This applies to actions that were not already time-barred as of the amendment's January 1, 2014 effective date. Claims that had already expired before that date remain barred.

Adult sexual assault (18 or older at the time): Illinois has no sexual-assault-specific statute of limitations for adult victims as a standalone rule. Instead, the general personal injury limitation of 2 years applies under 735 ILCS 5/13-202, which covers "actions for damages for an injury to the person" among other claims. There are two exceptions worth knowing. First, if the injury arises from the commission of a Class X felony (for example, aggravated criminal sexual assault) and the perpetrator is convicted of that crime, there is no time limit at all. Second, 735 ILCS 5/13-202.3 tolls — pauses — the 2-year period for injuries from sexual conduct or sexual penetration for as long as the victim remains subject to threats, intimidation, manipulation, or fraud by the perpetrator.