Track

Status

Governing provision

The child sexual assault rule — § 625:8, III(d): “For any offense under RSA 632-A or for an offense under RSA 639:2, where the victim was under 18 years of age when the alleged offense occurred, within 22 years of the victim’s eighteenth birthday.” RSA chapter 632-A is the sexual assault chapter; RSA 639:2 is incest. The practical deadline is the survivor’s fortieth birthday. 

The general periods it displaces — § 625:8, I: “(a) For a class A felony, 6 years; (b) For a class B felony, 6 years; (c) For a misdemeanor, one year; (d) For a violation, 3 months.” 

Murder only is unlimited — § 625:8, II: “Murder may be prosecuted at any time.” No sexual offense is in that category. 

Trafficking has its own clock — § 625:8, III(i): “For any offense under RSA 633:7, within 20 years, except where the victim was under 18 years of age when the alleged offense occurred, in which case within 20 years of the victim’s eighteenth birthday.” 

Concealment extends it — § 625:8, III(e): “For any offense where destruction or falsification of evidence, witness tampering, or other unlawful conduct delayed discovery of the offense, within one year of the discovery of the offense.” 

Tolling — § 625:8, VI: the period does not run during any time the accused is continuously absent from the state or has no reasonably ascertained place of abode or work in it, or while a prosecution for the same conduct is pending.

N.H. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 625:8 — New Hampshire General Court, official RSA text

The section is one sentence — § 508:4-g in full: “A person, alleging to have been subjected to any offense under RSA 632-A or an offense under RSA 639:2 may commence a personal action at any time.” 

But it reaches forward only. Ball holds that § 508:4-g cannot be applied to revive a claim on which the limitations period had already run before the section’s effective date of 18 September 2020. Ball, ¶ 31: “We hold that the trial court correctly ruled that Part I, Article 23 precludes application of RSA 508:4-g to revive the plaintiff’s time-barred claim.” 

The constitutional basis — N.H. Const. pt. I, art. 23: “Retrospective laws are highly injurious, oppressive, and unjust. No such laws, therefore, should be made, either for the decision of civil causes, or the punishment of offenses.” The court applied the rule of Woart v. Winnick, 3 N.H. 473 (1826), through Willard v. Harvey, Gould v. Concord Hospital and Maplevale Builders v. Town of Danville: once the limitations period has run, the defendant’s right to plead it has vested and cannot be taken away by statute (Ball, ¶¶ 11–12). 

The legislative history the court set out — § 508:4-g was enacted in 2005 with its own limitations period, extended in 2008, and amended in 2020 to remove the period altogether (Ball, ¶ 4). Except for the effective date, the section “is silent as to whether it applies prospectively or retrospectively” (Ball, ¶ 5). The court assumed, without deciding, that the legislature intended retroactivity, and struck the retroactive application anyway (Ball, ¶ 9). 

The dividing line in practice — a survivor whose claim was still alive on 18 September 2020 has no deadline at all. A survivor whose claim had already expired is barred, and the general rule at the time of most historic abuse was two years past the age of majority, i.e. age twenty (Ball, ¶ 3, citing Norton v. Patten, 125 N.H. 413 (1984)).

N.H. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 508:4-g — New Hampshire General Court, official RSA text 

Ball v. Roman Catholic Bishop of Manchester, No. 2024-0606 (N.H. 15 Oct. 2025) — full opinion, free

There is no revival statute. New Hampshire has never enacted a look-back window of the New York, New Jersey, North Carolina or Louisiana kind. The only retroactivity question the state has faced is whether the 2020 elimination in § 508:4-g reached backwards, and Ball answers that it does not. 

The court declined to change course. The plaintiff asked it to overrule or narrow Woart v. Winnick so that “there can be no vested right to a statute of limitations defense in actions based on sexual assault” (Ball, ¶ 17). Applying the four stare decisis factors, the court declined on every one (¶¶ 20–26). 

It considered and rejected the Maryland approach directly. The plaintiff urged the court to follow Roman Catholic Archbishop of Washington v. Doe, 489 Md. 514, 330 A.3d 1069 (2025), which upheld the Maryland Child Victims Act. Ball, ¶ 28, distinguishes it: the Maryland court “has never squarely addressed whether reviving a claim that is time-barred by an ordinary statute of limitations abrogates a vested right”, whereas New Hampshire “ha[s] consistently held that the expiration of a statute of limitations does create a vested right.” 

And the court balanced and still refused. On the argument that the survivor’s right to a remedy under N.H. Const. pt. I, art. 14 should outweigh the defendant’s vested right, the court held that Sumner v. New Hampshire Secretary of State was inapposite and that, even assuming a balancing test applied, it would not tip (¶ 29). 

The court said plainly what the result costs — Ball, ¶ 30: “We are acutely aware that victims of child sex abuse are some of the most vulnerable victims who deserve all of the protections and remedies available in our judicial system… we recognize that the result here may prevent some victims who have been impacted by sex abuse — during childhood or adulthood — from bringing claims when the statute of limitations has expired before the effective date of RSA 508:4-g.”

Ball v. Roman Catholic Bishop of Manchester, No. 2024-0606 (N.H. 15 Oct. 2025) — full opinion, free

one row: “New Hampshire | Ball v. RC Bishop of Manchester | 2025 N.H. 45 (2025 WL 2921762) | 2025 | Held reviving time-barred claims under RSA 508:4-g unconstitutional. Revival scored as none.” Accurate.