Track

Status

Governing provision

No limitation for the enumerated sexual offenses — § 628.26(e): “Indictments or complaints for violation of sections 609.322, 609.342 to 609.345, and 609.3458 may be found or made at any time after the commission of the offense.” Sections 609.342 to 609.345 are criminal sexual conduct in the first through fourth degrees; § 609.322 is solicitation, inducement and promotion of prostitution and sex trafficking; § 609.3458 is sexual extortion. 

BUT criminal sexual conduct in the FIFTH degree is not on that list — § 609.3451 is omitted from paragraph (e). The range in paragraph (e) stops at 609.345. A prosecution for a violation of § 609.3451 therefore falls to the residual rule. 

The residual rule — § 628.26(l): “In all other cases, indictments or complaints shall be found or made and filed in the proper court within three years after the commission of the offense.” Three years, running from the offense, with no tolling for the victim’s minority anywhere in the section. 

Other relevant paragraphs — § 628.26(a): crimes resulting in the death of the victim, at any time. § 628.26(b): kidnapping under § 609.25, at any time. § 628.26(c): labor trafficking under § 609.282 where the victim was under eighteen, at any time; § 628.26(d): six years where the victim was eighteen or older. 

Tolling — § 628.26(m): the periods exclude any time during which the defendant was not an inhabitant of or usually resident within Minnesota. § 628.26(n): they exclude any period during which the alleged offender participated under a written agreement in a pretrial diversion program. § 628.26(o): they exclude any period during which physical evidence was undergoing DNA analysis, unless the defendant shows the prosecuting or law enforcement agency purposefully delayed the analysis to gain an unfair advantage. 

Why this has been changed to “partly removed”, and this is the whole of it: the civil section defines sexual abuse as “conduct described in sections 609.342 to 609.3451 and 609.3458” — it runs to 609.3451. The criminal section stops at 609.345. Minnesota therefore treats fifth-degree criminal sexual conduct as child sexual abuse for civil purposes but leaves it on a three-year criminal clock running from the act. That is a real category of child sexual abuse offense with a real and very short deadline, and it is visible by putting the two sections side by side.

Minn. Stat. § 628.26 — Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes, official text

No limitation for child victims — § 541.073, subd. 2(a)(2): an action for damages based on sexual abuse “may be commenced at any time in the case of alleged sexual abuse of an individual under the age of 18, except as provided for in subdivision 4.” For adults, subd. 2(a)(1) gives six years. 

FIRST EXCEPTION — a young perpetrator — § 541.073, subd. 2(a)(3): the action “must be commenced before the plaintiff is 24 years of age in a claim against a natural person alleged to have sexually abused a minor when that natural person was under 14 years of age.” 

SECOND EXCEPTION, and the larger one — vicarious liability and respondeat superior — § 541.073, subd. 4: “A claim for vicarious liability or liability under the doctrine of respondeat superior must be commenced within six years of the alleged sexual abuse, provided that if the plaintiff was under the age of 18 at the time of the alleged abuse, the claim must be commenced before the plaintiff is 24 years of age. This subdivision does not limit the availability of these claims under other law.” 

What is NOT limited — § 541.073, subd. 3: “This section applies to an action for damages commenced against a person who was a cause of the plaintiff’s damages either by (1) committing sexual abuse against the plaintiff, or (2) negligence.” A negligence claim against an institution is therefore inside subdivision 2 and unlimited; only the vicarious and respondeat superior theories are capped at twenty-four. 

Definitions — § 541.073, subd. 1: “sexual abuse” means conduct described in §§ 609.342 to 609.3451 and 609.3458; “person” includes a natural person, corporation, limited liability company, partnership, organization, association or other entity. 

Continuous abuse — § 541.073, subd. 2(b): “The plaintiff need not establish which act in a continuous series of sexual abuse acts by the defendant caused the injury.” Subd. 2(c): the section does not affect suspension of the limitation during a period of disability under § 541.15. 

Two rules produce the “partly removed” status. Subdivision 2(a)(3): a claim against a natural person who was under fourteen at the time of the abuse must be brought before the plaintiff turns twenty-four. Subdivision 4: every vicarious liability and respondeat superior claim is capped at the survivor’s twenty-fourth birthday, whoever the defendant is. So a survivor can sue the abuser at any age and can sue an institution for its own negligence at any age, but cannot sue an institution on a vicarious theory after twenty-four.

Minn. Stat. § 541.073 — Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes, official text

The provision in full — 2013 Minn. Laws ch. 89, § 1, “EFFECTIVE DATE; APPLICABILITY” paragraph (b): “Notwithstanding any other provision of law, in the case of alleged sexual abuse of an individual under the age of 18, if the action would otherwise be time-barred under a previous version of Minnesota Statutes, section 541.073, or other time limit, an action for damages against a person, as defined in Minnesota Statutes, section 541.073, subdivision 1, clause (2), may be commenced no later than three years following the effective date of this section. This paragraph does not apply to a claim for vicarious liability or respondeat superior, but does apply to other claims, including negligence. This paragraph applies to actions pending on or commenced on or after the effective date.” 

And paragraph (a), which is the ordinary applicability rule — “This section is effective the day following final enactment. Except as provided in paragraph (b), this section applies to actions that were not time-barred before the effective date.” The Act was presented to the governor on 21 May 2013 and signed on 24 May 2013 at 2:08 p.m. 

Note who could be sued — the window ran against a “person” as defined in § 541.073, subd. 1, clause (2), which expressly includes corporations, limited liability companies, partnerships, organizations, associations and other entities. Institutions were squarely within it, on negligence, and expressly outside it on vicarious liability and respondeat superior. 

What the same Act did prospectively — § 1 rewrote § 541.073 to remove the discovery-based six-year rule for child victims and replace it with “may be commenced at any time”, added the under-14 perpetrator exception, deleted the provision that a parent’s or guardian’s knowledge may not be imputed to a minor, and added subdivision 4 capping vicarious and respondeat superior claims. It also gave the section its short title, the Child Victims Act. 

Minnesota is a clean example of a state that did both things at once and drew the same line in each: institutions could be reached in the window and can be reached now, but only for their own negligence, never vicariously. The tracker records the window as closed, which is right, but without dates. Both dates are recoverable from the Act itself, which is in the source folder.

Minn. Stat. § 541.073 — Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes, official text (the section 2013 Minn. Laws ch. 89 amended)

no Minnesota row.