Track

Status

Governing provision

No limitation for childhood sexual abuse — § 21-5107(a)(2): “A prosecution for childhood sexual abuse may be commenced at any time.” The subsection then defines the term for this purpose as any of twelve crimes where the victim is under eighteen: indecent liberties with a child; aggravated indecent liberties with a child; criminal sodomy under K.S.A. 21-5504(a)(3) and (a)(4); enticement of a child; indecent solicitation of a child; aggravated indecent solicitation of a child; sexual exploitation of a child; aggravated sexual battery; aggravated incest; aggravated human trafficking where committed in whole or in part for sexual gratification; internet trading or aggravated internet trading in child pornography; and commercial sexual exploitation of a child. 

And separately, regardless of the victim’s age — § 21-5107(a)(1): rape, aggravated criminal sodomy, murder, terrorism and illegal use of weapons of mass destruction may be prosecuted at any time. 

Ten years past eighteen for the rest — § 21-5107(c)(2): except as provided in subsections (a) and (e), a prosecution for a sexually violent crime as defined in K.S.A. 22-3717 “when the victim is under 18 years of age shall be commenced within 10 years of the date the victim turns 18 years of age or one year from the date on which the identity of the suspect is conclusively established by DNA testing, whichever is later.” That is a deadline at twenty-eight. § 21-5107(c)(1): where the victim was eighteen or older, ten years, or one year from DNA identification. 

Everything else — § 21-5107(d): a prosecution for any crime not governed by subsection (a), (b) or (c) shall be commenced within five years. 

A repressed-memory route with a hard ceiling — § 21-5107(e)(6): the period does not include any time during which, whether or not the fact of the crime is concealed by the accused’s active conduct, there is substantially competent evidence to believe two or more of the following are present: the victim was a child under fifteen at the time of the crime; the victim was of such age or intelligence as to be unable to determine that the acts constituted a crime; the victim was prevented by a parent or other legal authority from making the crime known to law enforcement, whether or not that person is the accused; and there is substantially competent expert testimony that the victim psychologically repressed the memory, that in the expert’s opinion the recall is accurate and free of undue manipulation, and that substantial corroborating evidence can be produced. But “in no event may a prosecution be commenced as provided in subsection (e)(6) later than the date the victim turns 28 years of age.” § 21-5107(h) defines “parent or other legal authority” to include natural and stepparents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and siblings. 

Why “partly removed”: the subsection (a)(2) list is broad but it is a list. A sexually violent crime against a child that is not on it falls to subsection (c)(2) and expires at twenty-eight; anything outside both falls to the five-year period in subsection (d). The repressed-memory provision in subsection (e)(6) looks generous until its last clause, which caps every prosecution brought under it at the victim’s twenty-eighth birthday — the same age as the ordinary cap it is meant to relieve.

Kan. Stat. Ann. § 21-5107 — Kansas Revisor of Statutes, official text

The period — § 60-523(a): “No action for recovery of damages for an injury or illness suffered as a result of childhood sexual abuse shall be commenced more than 13 years after the date the victim attains 18 years of age or more than three years after the date of a criminal conviction for a crime described in subsection (b) related to such childhood sexual abuse, whichever occurs later.” The floor is the survivor’s thirty-first birthday; the conviction limb can carry it further. 

What counts — § 60-523(b)(2) lists the qualifying offenses, and the list is materially the same as the criminal one in § 21-5107(a)(2) with two additions: rape and aggravated criminal sodomy appear here, and paragraph (O) sweeps in “any prior laws of this state of similar effect at the time the act was committed.” 

Psychological injury counts — § 60-523(b)(1): “‘Injury or illness’ includes psychological injury or illness, whether accompanied by physical injury or illness.” 

The conviction limb is the part worth noticing — a survivor whose abuser is convicted at any point gets three years from that conviction, however long after the abuse it comes. Kansas is one of a small group of states that tie the civil clock to the criminal outcome in this way; Connecticut does something comparable in § 52-577e, though Connecticut removes the deadline entirely rather than restarting it. 

Thirteen years past eighteen is a long period by the standards of this dataset — longer than Georgia’s age twenty-three, Kentucky’s age twenty-eight, Indiana’s seven years from accrual. But it is still a deadline, and there is no discovery limb: a survivor who does not connect the injury to the abuse until their forties has nothing to rely on unless there is a conviction.

Kan. Stat. Ann. § 60-523 — Kansas Revisor of Statutes, official text

The provision — § 60-523(c): “This section shall be applicable to any action commenced on or after July 1, 1992, including any action that would be barred by application of the period of limitation applicable prior to July 1, 1992.” That is reach-back language: on its face it applies the section to claims that the pre-1992 limitation had already barred. 

It is not a window — there is no opening or closing date. It is a permanent applicability clause attached to the 1992 enactment, and it has been carried forward through the 2011 and 2023 amendments unchanged. 

The live dispute — § 60-523 has been limited on constitutional grounds by A.S. v. Vineyard Church of Overland Park, Kan. Ct. App., 27 June 2025, and the Kansas Supreme Court granted review on 17 October 2025. 

What the Court of Appeals decided, stated carefully — the decision (No. 127,118, 27 June 2025) holds that the 2023 amendment to § 60-523 is subject to prospective application only, and reasons from vested rights: a party with an accrued cause of action not yet reduced to judgment has a vested property right in it, and retroactive application is inappropriate where it would eradicate a vested right. WHAT THIS MEANS FOR SURVIVORS COULD NOT BE DETERMINED FROM A FREE SOURCE and is deliberately not stated here. It could not be established whether the vested right the court protected belonged to the plaintiff (whose already-filed claim the amendment would have cut off) or to a defendant (whose limitation defense a revival would have taken away). Those are opposite results for the tracker, and the full opinion is needed to tell them apart. 

The older history — Shirley v. Reif, 260 Kan. 514 (1996) is understood to be the authority on how § 60-523(c) operates as against pre-1992 claims. It was not retrieved or read for this page and nothing is stated from it. It should be read before Kansas is finally scored. 

The practical point for the tracker: Kansas is currently recorded as revival “None”, which reads as legislative silence. It is not silence. There is a statutory reach-back clause on the books, there is a 2025 Court of Appeals decision limiting the 2023 amendment on constitutional grounds, and the Kansas Supreme Court has taken the case. Kansas belongs alongside Arkansas as “in litigation”, not alongside Idaho as “none”.

Kan. Stat. Ann. § 60-523 — Kansas Revisor of Statutes, official text

no Kansas row.