Common Questions / Sexual Abuse
What are my civil options as a survivor of sexual abuse?
A civil claim belongs to you, not the state: it can hold both the abuser and the institutions that enabled the abuse financially accountable, on your timeline and your terms. Texas gives survivors of childhood abuse decades to decide, and since 2025, no settlement can require your silence.
The civil claim is yours, and it reaches further than the criminal case
A criminal prosecution belongs to the state; it can imprison, but it cannot compensate, and the survivor is a witness in someone else's case. A civil claim is different in every way that matters: you decide whether to bring it, you control whether to settle, the standard of proof is the civil preponderance rather than beyond a reasonable doubt, and it can proceed whether or not charges were ever filed. It also reaches defendants the criminal case never touches, the school, church, camp, youth organization, or employer that hired without checking, ignored reports, moved the abuser along, or protected the institution instead of the child. Institutional accountability is usually where both the compensation and the change live.
Time, and how Texas has extended it
Texas has repeatedly lengthened the civil deadlines in recognition of how long disclosure actually takes. Under current law, survivors of childhood sexual abuse generally have thirty years after their eighteenth birthday to file, until age forty-eight, and the Legislature acted again in 2025 to extend the windows further for certain offenses. Claims for assault suffered as an adult carry a shorter period, generally five years. The honest caveat: which deadline applies depends on when the abuse occurred and the specific conduct, older abuse can fall under earlier versions of the law, and doctrines like the discovery rule sometimes extend even those. No survivor should conclude from a blog post, including this one, that it is too late; the deadline analysis is individual, and it is part of a free, confidential consultation.
Your privacy, your pace, and the end of forced silence
These cases can be brought with real protections: filing under a pseudonym, Jane or John Doe, is established practice, protective orders shield records and identity, and nothing about the process requires a public retelling before you are ready. And Texas closed a long-standing wound in 2025 with Trey's Law: confidentiality clauses that would bar a survivor from speaking about the abuse are now void as against public policy, retroactively, meaning silence can no longer be made the price of a settlement, and old NDAs no longer carry the weight institutions once claimed. You can resolve a case and still own your story. That is now the law of Texas.
When you are ready
There is no deadline on this page urging you to hurry, because this decision runs on the survivor's clock. When and if you want to understand your options, Silver Key Law will listen first, explain the deadlines and the process plainly, and let you decide everything, in a consultation that is free, confidential, and entirely without obligation.
Injured in Arizona? Some rules on this page are Texas-specific. Arizona differs on points that change outcomes, including pure comparative fault and government-claim deadlines. See our Arizona answers or call (888) 508-6967.
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This page is general information about Texas law, not legal advice about your specific situation. Deadlines and outcomes depend on facts; talk to a lawyer about yours.
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