Child sexual abuse is a public health crisis in Georgia that recent legislative measures have done almost nothing to relieve—that and other findings are reported in a white paper produced by the Wilbanks Child Endangerment and Sexual Exploitation Clinic at the University of Georgia School of Law.

“Although the scope of the problem is broad, access to the civil justice system remains narrow for survivors in Georgia,” the clinic leaders said in the report “Statute of Limitations for Child Sexual Abuse Civil Lawsuits in Georgia: Update on Case Findings and Opportunities for Reform.”

The 42-page document is posted on the CEASE clinic website.

The lead author is Emma Hetherington, the clinic's director and an assistant professor at the law school. Contributing authors include Jean Mangan, the clinic's staff attorney, and legal interns Bryce Bailey, Chase Lyndale and Michael Nunnally.

Hetherington is on maternity leave but is returning to the clinic later this month. Mangan said in an interview with the Daily Report that, despite the legal barriers to survivor claims, the clinic has experienced a growing demand for its expertise from lawyers across the state and the country.

Atlanta attorney Marlan Wilbanks of Wilbanks & Gouinlock founded the clinic to provide free legal care to survivors of childhood sexual abuse. The clinic is the first of its kind in the country. Now in its fourth year, the clinic also has hosted events, legal education programs and forums for survivors, prosecutors and litigators.

“We're recognizing the difficulty of these claims,” Mangan said. “We have the resources. We have the university. We have this knowledge base. We have this expertise.”

The much-talked-about two-year “open window” on the statute of limitations in the 2015 Hidden Predator Act carried so many restrictions and such a tight deadline that only 15 cases were filed in the entire state—six by the clinic, the report said.

The reality was a far cry from the feared “floodgates” of litigation expressed by opponents of opening up the statute of limitations, it found.

Of the clinic's six cases, one was voluntarily dismissed by the survivor. Four were settled confidentially after mediation. One went to a bench trail, where the judge found in favor of the survivor—a man alleging sexual abuse by a teacher who befriended his family and invited him to her home for tennis lessons and sleepovers, starting when he was 9 years old. The suit wasn't filed until he grew up and his own son turned 9. That's when he connected the abuse to a lifetime of problems—starting with expulsion from school and moving on to alcohol and drug abuse, intimacy issues in his marriage and other health issues. The judge ordered the teacher to pay damages—of $15,000.

Even those who filed claims could sue only the individual perpetrators, not the entities—such as a school or nonprofit organization—whose leaders they allege knew or should have known about the abuse. That's because the one thing the Hidden Predator Act did well was protect entities from liability, the report founds. There, Georgia stands out with only one other state. Many other many states that have recently opened up the statute of limitations for child sex abuse survivors didn't exclude organizations from liability, the clinic said.

“Child sexual abuse is a public health crisis affecting individuals and families across all socioeconomic groups. An estimated one in ten children will be sexually abused in the United States before they reach the age of eighteen; however, this is likely an underestimate given that only about one-third of children disclose their abuse,” the report said. “While an argument can be made that the HPA did provide for retroactive claims, fewer than 15 were filed during a two-year period. If one in ten children are sexually abused prior to age 18 and there are approximately 10 million people in the state of Georgia, then fewer than 0.000015% of the 1,000,000 survivors of child sexual abuse in the state of Georgia were able to bring retroactive claims under the HPA.”

Current Georgia law requires survivors to file claims before their 23rd birthday if the abuse happened before July 1, 2015.

Those abused after that date have until they reach age 23, or two years after making the connection that the abuse caused their injuries, the report said. No cases have been filed on that basis, and none are expected for years, if not decades, the clinic said.

The restrictions effectively bar most cases, because survivors of childhood sexual abuse generally don't disclose the trauma until they're in their 30s or 40s—often not until they have children of the age they were when the abuse happened, the report said.

The clinic presented another case study that resolved after mediation. It was a woman who had been sexually abused by her stepfather from age 12 to 17. As a result, she had suffered mental health issues, dropped out of school and been hospitalized for suicide watch. Like most others who came to the clinic, she was not just seeking financial damages. Her stepfather had sexually abused at least one other child that she knew about and was actively seeking to start a church youth group for 12-year-old girls that would meet in his home. He also continued to be around other children, such as his girlfriend's grandchildren. She wanted to cut off his access to those he might abuse and to tell him what he did was wrong, according to the report.

“While trials in civil lawsuits can result in monetary awards for survivors of child sexual abuse, other outcomes sought by CEASE clients and other survivors are unavailable at trial. For example, a judge in a civil lawsuit cannot order the defendant to be on a sex offender registry, obtain psychological treatment, or force the defendant to apologize to the survivor,” the report said.

“As a result, the CEASE Clinic often advises clients that mediation may be a better forum in which to obtain the results they are seeking. Through mediation, clients can ask for apologies or for defendants to seek psychological treatment, in addition to monetary damages for the harm caused,” the report said. Even if the defendants insist on including nondisclosure agreements, the clinic said, “mediation does provide the opportunity for survivors to confront their abusers and obtain outcomes not available in a civil trial.”

In addition, the clinic said, mediation also “allows survivors to [avoid] the retraumatization that can occur during courtroom testimony and where they are subject to cross-examination by defense attorneys.”

The clinic's findings could be read as a call to legislative action to abolish or dramatically extend the statute of limitations for litigation by survivors of childhood sexual abuse. But that effort has already failed at the Georgia Capitol since the Hidden Predator Act “open window” expired in 2017.

The clinic's mission is bigger than that, according to Mangan, the staff attorney. She cited a guest lecturer at the clinic in April—Pennsylvania Deputy Attorney General Daniel Dye, the prosecutor who led the investigation that culminated in a grand jury report in February charging 301 priests with sexually abusing more than 1,000 children.

“What do we do?” Mangan recalled, quoting Dye. “You make this a conversation at your dining room table. It's about empowering people. If you see something, you say something.”

Mangan said the clinic also has provided information to defense attorneys researching their cases.

“The way you get to the truth is when you have both sides heard and heard fully. We want to educate everyone,” Mangan said. “The bigger goal is for the abuse to stop.”