Track

Status

Governing provision

A long list of childhood sexual offenses has no limitation — § 76-1-301(2): prosecution may be commenced at any time for a capital felony; aggravated murder; murder; manslaughter; child abuse homicide; aiding or encouraging suicide; aggravated kidnapping; child kidnapping; rape (§ 76-5-402); rape of a child (§ 76-5-402.1); object rape (§ 76-5-402.2); object rape of a child (§ 76-5-402.3); forcible sodomy (§ 76-5-403); sodomy on a child (§ 76-5-403.1); sexual abuse of a child (§ 76-5-404.1); aggravated sexual abuse of a child (§ 76-5-404.3); aggravated sexual assault (§ 76-5-405); aggravated human trafficking; human trafficking of a child for labor; human trafficking of a child for commercial sexual exploitation; female genital mutilation; aggravated human smuggling; and aggravated exploitation of prostitution involving a child. 

BUT ONE SECTION PUTS A TEN-YEAR CLOCK ON A WHOLE CLASS — § 76-1-301.1, in full: “The statute of limitations for a felony violation of Section 76-5-401 or 76-5-401.2 is 10 years from the time the victim reaches the age of 18.” Section 76-5-401 is unlawful sexual activity with a minor; § 76-5-401.2 is unlawful sexual conduct with a 16- or 17-year-old. The deadline is the survivor’s twenty-eighth birthday. 

That section was added deliberately and recently — H.B. 247 of the 2020 General Session, Laws 2020, c. 194, § 1, effective 12 May 2020. It is not a legacy provision that the elimination overlooked; it is a period the legislature created six years ago for offenses that are not in the § 76-1-301(2) list. 

And the general periods catch anything else — § 76-1-302: a prosecution for a felony or negligent homicide must be commenced within four years; for a misdemeanor other than negligent homicide, two years; for an infraction, one year. The section also carries an extension for sexual abuse offenses — eight years, if reported within four years of the offense — and a fifteen-years-from-eighteen rule for certain marriage-related offenses. 

So the boundary is between the § 76-1-301(2) list and everything else. Abuse charged as rape of a child, sodomy on a child, object rape of a child, sexual abuse of a child or aggravated sexual abuse of a child has no deadline. Abuse charged under § 76-5-401 or § 76-5-401.2 — which is how consensual-in-fact conduct with an older teenager is typically charged — is barred at twenty-eight. 

Why the status is “partly removed”: § 76-1-301.1 is cited in the tracker’s own criminal citation field and says on its face that there is a ten-year period. A status of “No deadline” cannot stand alongside a citation to a section headed “Statute of limitations”.

Utah Code Title 76, ch. 1, Part 3 (Limitations of Actions) — Utah Legislature, official code, carrying §§ 76-1-301, 76-1-301.1 and 76-1-302 

H.B. 247 (2020), enrolled — Utah Legislature, the Act that added § 76-1-301.1

No deadline at all against the abuser — § 78B-2-308(3)(a): “A victim may file a civil action against a perpetrator for intentional or negligent sexual abuse suffered as a child at any time.” 

BUT FOUR YEARS AGAINST EVERYONE ELSE — § 78B-2-308(3)(b): “A victim may file a civil action against a non-perpetrator for intentional or negligent sexual abuse suffered as a child: (i) within four years after the individual attains the age of 18 years; or (ii) if a victim discovers sexual abuse only after attaining the age of 18 years, that individual may bring a civil action for such sexual abuse within four years after discovery of the sexual abuse, whichever period expires later.” The ordinary deadline against a school, church, agency or non-abusing parent is the survivor’s twenty-second birthday. 

The defendant must be alive, and must fall into one of three categories — § 78B-2-308(6): an action may be brought only against a living individual who “(a) intentionally perpetrated the sexual abuse; (b) would be criminally responsible for the sexual abuse in accordance with Section 76-2-202; or (c) negligently permitted the sexual abuse to occur.” Note “individual”: the section is drafted around people rather than entities, and the death of the abuser ends the claim against him. 

“Negligently” is defined restrictively — § 78B-2-308(2)(e): it means a failure to act to prevent the abuse continuing or to report it to law enforcement, where the adult who could act knows or reasonably should know of the abuse and is the victim’s parent, stepparent, adoptive parent, foster parent, legal guardian, ancestor, descendant, brother, sister, uncle, aunt, first cousin, nephew, niece, grandparent, stepgrandparent “or any individual cohabiting in the child’s home.” On that definition, the non-perpetrator claim is a family claim: a teacher, coach or clergy supervisor who ignored the abuse is not within it. 

Two provisions that help — § 78B-2-308(4): the victim need not establish which act in a series caused the injury, and may compute discovery from the last act by the same perpetrator in a common scheme. § 78B-2-308(5): a custodial parent’s or guardian’s knowledge is not imputed to a person under eighteen. 

And a set of legislative findings that are unusual to find in a limitations section — § 78B-2-308(1) records that “it takes decades for children and adults to pull their lives back together and find the strength to face what happened to them”, that the abuse is often compounded where the perpetrator is a family member, and that in 1992, when the four-year rule was enacted, “society did not understand the long-lasting effects of abuse on the victim”. Those findings were written to support the revival window in subsection (7) — the one Mitchell struck down. 

The reason it is partly rather than fully removed is not a date cut-off, as in Colorado, Illinois, Maine, Nebraska, New Hampshire and Oregon, but the identity of the defendant: unlimited against the abuser, age twenty-two against anyone else, and the non-perpetrator category itself confined by § 78B-2-308(2)(e) to household and family members. Utah is the most restrictive state in this dataset on who can be sued at all.

Utah Code Title 78B, ch. 2, Part 3 — Utah Legislature, official code, carrying § 78B-2-308

What the window said — § 78B-2-308(7): “A civil action against an individual described in Subsection (6)(a) or (b) for sexual abuse that was time barred as of July 1, 2016, may be brought within 35 years of the victim’s 18th birthday, or within three years of the effective date of this Subsection (7), whichever is longer.” Note that it revived claims only against the abuser and those criminally responsible under § 76-2-202 — not against a negligent non-perpetrator under subsection (6)(c). 

It was held unconstitutional — Mitchell v. Roberts, ¶ 5: “We hold that the Utah Legislature is constitutionally prohibited from retroactively reviving a time-barred claim in a manner depriving a defendant of a vested statute of limitations defense.” And ¶ 49: “we therefore conclude that Utah Code section 78B-2-308(7) is an unconstitutional exercise of legislative power.” 

The ground was the Due Process Clause of the Utah Constitution, read historically — the court held that a ripened limitations defense is a vested right, tracing the rule through In re Handley’s Estate, 15 Utah 212, 49 P. 829 (1897); Ireland v. Mackintosh, 22 Utah 296, 61 P. 901 (1900); In re Swan’s Estate (1938); Greenhalgh v. Payson City (1975); Del Monte Corp. v. Moore (1978); Roark v. Crabtree (1995); and State v. Apotex Corp., 2012 UT 36. It then held the rule confirmed by the original understanding of “due process” and “legislative power” at the framing of the Utah Constitution in 1895, including statements by delegates Richards, Varian and Maloney at the constitutional convention. 

The court said what the result costs — Mitchell, ¶ 52: “The problems presented in a case like this one are heart-wrenching. We have enormous sympathy for victims of child sex abuse. But our oath is to support, obey, and defend the constitution.” And ¶ 9: “The people of Utah retain the power to amend the Utah Constitution to alter the legislature’s authority in this area if they see fit. But the document as it stands (and as originally understood) forecloses the legislature’s power to enact legislation that retroactively vitiates a ripened statute of limitations defense.” A constitutional amendment is therefore the only route left. 

Maryland has since declined to follow Mitchell. Roman Catholic Archbishop of Washington v. Doe (Md., 3 February 2025) expressly declined to follow it and upheld the Maryland Child Victims Act. Utah and Maryland are the two poles of the national split on this question, and one expressly rejected the other. 

Subsection (7) is still on the books, and that is a trap. The section retains its heading, “Window for revival of time barred claims”, and subsection (7) is printed in the current Utah Code with no annotation on the face of the text. Anyone reading § 78B-2-308 without the case law would conclude that Utah has a permanent revival for claims against perpetrators running to the survivor’s fifty-third birthday. 

The tracker carries Mitchell in the civil citation field and in the court-decisions table, but the revival value reads a bare “None”, which does not distinguish Utah from a state that never tried. Utah did try, and the attempt was struck down on constitutional grounds that no ordinary statute can cure. The status on this page and in the grid says so.

Mitchell v. Roberts, No. 20170447 (Utah 11 June 2020) — full opinion, free 

Utah Code § 78B-2-308(7) — Utah Legislature, official code (the subsection is still printed)