Partner Brian Williams was quoted in Berkeley news site, The Daily Californian, regarding a childhood sexual assault lawsuit recently filed against Berkeley Unified School District. The lawsuit alleges that the two female plaintiffs were repeatedly sexually assaulted by a teacher’s aide when they were elementary students in an after-school program in the late 1980s.
This lawsuit was made possible thanks to the California Child Victims Act (AB 218), a landmark piece of legislation that affords survivors of childhood sexual abuse a soon-to-close “window” to take legal action against perpetrators and negligent institutions, regardless of how long ago the abuse occurred.
“These two women are prime examples of why that law exists,” Williams said. “Survivors of assault, they don’t work from an arbitrary deadline like a statute of limitation. The reality is the California legislature has recognized that it takes years or decades for survivors to come forward.”
