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THE CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE RULE — § 171.095(1)(b): an indictment must be found, or an information or complaint filed, “for any offense constituting sexual abuse of a child as defined in NRS 432B.100 or sex trafficking of a child as defined in NRS 201.300, before the victim is: (1) Thirty-six years old if the victim discovers or reasonably should have discovered that he or she was a victim of the sexual abuse or sex trafficking by the date on which the victim reaches that age; or (2) Forty-three years old if the victim does not discover and reasonably should not have discovered that he or she was a victim of the sexual abuse or sex trafficking by the date on which the victim reaches 36 years of age.” 

That is a deadline, and it is why Nevada is scored “Deadline applies” — thirty-six for a survivor who knows, forty-three for one who does not. Both are long by the standards of this review, but they are fixed ages with no route past them on the face of the section. 

Offenses committed in secret — § 171.095(1)(a): where a felony, gross misdemeanor or misdemeanor is committed in a secret manner, the ordinary periods run from the discovery of the offense rather than its commission. 

Three routes that remove the limitation entirely, none of them keyed to childhood — § 171.080(1): no limitation for murder, or a sexual assault arising out of the same facts and circumstances as a murder. § 171.082: where the identity of a person accused of sexual assault “is established by conducting a genetic marker analysis of a biological specimen and obtaining a DNA profile, the period of limitation prescribed in NRS 171.085 is removed”. § 171.083(1): if at any time during the period a victim of sexual assault or sex trafficking, or a person authorized to act for them, “files with a law enforcement officer a written report concerning the sexual assault or sex trafficking, the period of limitation prescribed in NRS 171.085 and 171.095 is removed and there is no limitation of the time within which a prosecution … must be commenced.” 

The written-report route is the significant one for survivors — it converts a reported sexual assault into an unlimited prosecution, and § 171.083(2) requires the officer to give the victim a copy of the report. Section 171.083(3) also excludes from the calculation any period during which the victim is under a disability, defined in § 171.083(4) as being “insane, intellectually disabled, mentally incompetent or in a medically comatose or vegetative state.” 

The periods that otherwise apply — § 171.085(2): sexual assault, twenty years. § 171.085(3): sex trafficking, six years. § 171.085(4): any other felony, three years. § 171.085(1): theft, robbery, burglary, forgery, arson and certain securities and identity offenses, four years. § 171.090: gross misdemeanor, two years; any other misdemeanor, one year. § 171.084: the period for kidnapping or attempted murder is extended five years where a written report is filed.

Nev. Rev. Stat. ch. 171 — Nevada Legislature, official NRS

No limitation at all — § 11.215(1): “An action to recover damages for an injury to a person arising from the sexual abuse or sexual exploitation of the plaintiff which occurred when the plaintiff was less than 18 years of age may be commenced against the alleged perpetrator or person convicted of the sexual abuse or sexual exploitation of the plaintiff at any time after the sexual abuse or sexual exploitation occurred.” 

And a companion provision — § 11.215(2): “An action to recover damages pursuant to NRS 41.1396 may be commenced at any time.” 

What counts, and it is wider than the criminal law — § 11.215(4)(a): “sexual abuse” has the meaning ascribed to it in NRS 432B.100. § 11.215(4)(b): “sexual exploitation” has the meaning ascribed to it in NRS 432B.110. Those are the child-protection definitions rather than the criminal code definitions, and they reach conduct that is not itself criminal: the argument recorded in Lasha v. Cosby is that they include sado-masochistic abuse as defined in NRS 201.262, which is defined but not criminalized, and “forcing, allowing or encouraging a child … [t]o view a pornographic film or literature” under NRS 432B.110(2). 

The adult counterpart — § 11.217(1) does the same for sexual assault occurring when the plaintiff was eighteen or older, enacted by S.B. 129. The two sections were challenged on identical grounds and upheld in parallel litigation. 

BUT IT IS NOT A CAUSE OF ACTION. In Lasha v. Cosby the court held that “under a plain reading of the NRS 11.215, there is no private cause of action under the statute”: what S.B. 203 did was remove the limitation on other torts that constitute child sexual abuse or exploitation, as defined in the section. The plaintiff’s standalone claim under § 11.215 was dismissed; her claims for battery, assault, false imprisonment and intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress survived, because those are the torts the section revives. A survivor or lawyer reading a bare “No deadline / NRS 11.215” entry could reasonably think § 11.215 is the claim to plead. It is not.

Nev. Rev. Stat. ch. 11 — Nevada Legislature, official NRS (NRS 11.215 and 11.217)

How the revival works — Nevada did not open a dated window. It removed the limitation outright and applied it to conduct whenever it occurred, so claims that had long since expired became actionable. The plaintiff in Lasha sued over an alleged assault in 1986; the court described her common law claims as “revived by SB 203”. 

What the Nevada Supreme Court has said — Clark County School District v. Eighth Judicial District Court, 534 P.3d 137 (Nev. 2023), quoted in Lasha: S.B. 203 “eliminates any limitations period for claims for damages arising from sexual abuse that occurred when the plaintiff was under the age of 18.” That decision was not in the source folder and was not retrieved; it is recorded here as quoted by the federal court. 

THREE constitutional challenges, all rejected — in Lasha v. Cosby the defendant argued that S.B. 203 was impermissible special legislation under article 4, sections 20 and 21 of the Nevada Constitution; that it violated due process under both the federal and Nevada Constitutions by divesting a vested property right; and that it violated the federal and Nevada ex post facto clauses. The court rejected each. 

On special legislation — the defendant “has not made the threshold showing that SB 129 is a special law because he has not shown that it applies to a subclass of individuals who otherwise stand in the same relation to the subject of the law”, and in any event the Nevada legislature “could not have come up with a general law” covering so ill-defined a class as perpetrators of “heinous”, “interpersonal” or “sexual” crimes. 

On due process — the court held the defendant did not have a vested property right in the statute of limitations under the federal Constitution and was not convinced the Nevada Supreme Court would find that limitations create property rights under the Nevada Constitution; and that even if such a right existed, S.B. 203 “was justified by a rational legislative purpose such that it meets due process requirements.” It expressly declined to follow Mitchell v. Roberts, describing it as “a single out-of-state opinion interpreting an out-of-state constitution and out-of-state laws.” The defendant himself “acknowledges that the Supreme Court determined that statutes of limitations are not vested rights and states that he will not argue the issue further.” 

On ex post facto — the clauses apply to criminal laws; S.B. 203 “affects only the statute of limitations on sexual exploitation and abuse of a minor; no penalties or evidentiary burdens have been altered.” Applying Kansas v. Hendricks and the seven Kennedy factors, the court found the legislative purpose was “to compensate victims of childhood sexual abuse and exploitation, not to punish alleged perpetrators”, and that the defendant had not provided “anything close to the ‘clearest proof’” of a punitive effect.

Nev. Rev. Stat. ch. 11 — Nevada Legislature, official NRS (NRS 11.215)

no Nevada row.