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By Marie Napoli, founding partner of Napoli Shkolnik, where she represents survivors of sexual abuse and other victims of institutional harm
The Department of Justice watchdog has opened an investigation into whether the government properly complied with the law requiring release of the Epstein files. The question of who gets protected and who gets left behind is one survivors already know the answer to. Many of these women did exactly what they were supposed to do. They came forward. They told law enforcement. They reported to the FBI. And still, for years, nothing happened. The powerful remained protected. The institutions closed ranks. Survivors were left to carry not only their trauma, but the added weight of a system that failed them.
That inaction is not an anomaly. It is a pattern. One that civil law has increasingly been forced to address when criminal justice cannot or will not.
We know from research and lived experience that trauma does not follow a tidy timeline. Sexual assault is a crime of power, and the very power imbalances that enable abuse are the same ones that silence survivors for years, sometimes decades. The abuser may be a boss, a mentor, a community leader, a priest, or a beloved public figure. The survivor may face institutional pressure, financial dependence, fear of retaliation, or simply the overwhelming psychological weight of what happened to them.
According to Child USA, 86 percent of child sexual abuse goes unreported before adulthood, and those who do come forward don’t disclose until an average age of 52. That is not weakness. That is the reality of how trauma works.
Traditional statutes of limitations were never designed with these realities in mind. When the law sets an arbitrary clock ticking from the moment of assault, it effectively punishes survivors for having a human response to dehumanizing harm.
That is why lookback windows represent one of the most meaningful legal reforms of our time. These laws temporarily suspend expired statutes of limitations, giving survivors who were previously locked out of the courthouse a defined window to file civil claims against both their abusers and the institutions that enabled them. New York has led the way: the 2019 Child Victims Act generated more than 10,000 lawsuits; the Adult Survivors Act produced over 3,000 more. New York City recently opened a new 18-month window for claims predating January 2022.
These windows are not just a legal mechanism. They are a legal acknowledgment of what we know to be true: survivors deserve the opportunity to tell their story, to be heard, to hold their abusers accountable, and to access some measure of justice.
There is a reason powerful institutions invest enormous resources in fighting these windows, and why that resistance does not end when a settlement is finally reached. Civil litigation has been one of the most effective tools we have for forcing transparency, dismantling patterns of abuse, and compelling reform in organizations that have long operated with impunity. The Boy Scouts of America maintained internal “perversion files” for decades. It was civil litigation, enabled in part by lookback laws, that forced those files into public view and produced a $2.46 billion settlement fund for more than 82,000 survivors. The Catholic Church’s decades of concealment were similarly exposed not through prosecution, but through civil discovery.
These lawsuits do more than compensate individuals. They create a public record. They expose systemic failures. They send a message that power does not confer permanent protection. And yet, even after survivors win, a new layer of resistance emerges. Insurance companies, some with assets exceeding $200 billion, are fighting to avoid paying claims that their own policyholders agreed to settle.
Let that sink in. More legal firepower and corporate resources are being deployed to deny survivors their settlements than were ever devoted to preventing the abuse in the first place. It is a second betrayal. The powerful are protecting their financial interests at the direct expense of people who have already suffered enough.
Lookback windows have been a lifeline. They have ignited a movement, connecting survivors across industries and generations who never imagined they would have a path to justice. That movement is real, it is growing, and it must not be strangled by corporate legal strategy.
But windows are not enough. It is time for legislators across this country to take the next necessary step: eliminate statutes of limitations entirely for survivors of child sexual abuse, both criminal and civil. There is no justification, legal or moral, for placing an expiration date on justice for a child who was violated by someone they were supposed to trust. The trauma does not expire. The harm does not expire. The accountability should not either.
The Epstein files are not just a story about one man. They are a story about systems built to protect the powerful and the ongoing investigation into whether the government’s own release of those files shielded the guilty while exposing the vulnerable is proof that the story is not over. Dismantling those systems means following through, in the legislature, in the courtroom, until every survivor has the access to justice they have always deserved.
No more waiting and no more letting wealth and power stand between survivors and the justice they are owed.
Contact Us
At Napoli Shkolnik, we represent survivors of sexual abuse and institutional harm, including clients who are filing under New York City’s current lookback window for gender-motivated violence.
If you or someone you know was harmed and believes the statute of limitations may have expired, we encourage you to reach out. Our attorneys can help you understand your options. Contact us today for a free, confidential consultation.