Can you sue an institution for sexual abuse?

By Michael Shemtoub, trial attorney, Beverly Law. Updated November 2026.

You can read this at your own pace, and you do not have to talk to anyone until you are ready. If you want support now, RAINN runs a free, confidential hotline at 800-656-4673 (800-656-HOPE), open 24/7 in English and Spanish. If anyone is in danger right now, call 911.

How an organization becomes responsible

Most organizations are not automatically liable just because the abuser worked or volunteered there. California’s Supreme Court treated a school counselor’s abuse as outside the scope of her job, then held the district could still answer for the negligence of the administrators who hired, kept and supervised her (C.A. v. William S. Hart Union High School Dist., 2012). A claim like that is about the organization’s own conduct, and it usually takes one of these forms:

• Negligent hiring: the organization skipped a background or reference check that would have shown a risk.
• Negligent supervision: it allowed unmonitored one-on-one time, overnight trips or private messaging that its own policies, or ordinary care, should have prevented.
• Negligent retention: it kept the person in the same role after complaints, rumors or rule violations.

The Washington Supreme Court put it in plain terms for churches. They are subject to “the same duties of reasonable care” as anyone else in selecting and supervising their workers (C.J.C. v. Corporation of the Catholic Bishop of Yakima, 1999).

California: duty of care and the cover-up rule

California’s childhood sexual assault statute reaches two kinds of defendants besides the abuser. One is a person or entity that “owed a duty of care to the plaintiff” whose wrongful or negligent act was a legal cause of the assault. The other is a person or entity whose intentional act was a legal cause of it (CCP 340.1(a)).

The same statute lets a survivor who proves the assault was the result of a cover-up recover up to three times the damages against a defendant found to have covered up the sexual assault of a minor, unless another law prohibits it. It defines a cover-up as “a concerted effort to hide evidence relating to childhood sexual assault” (CCP 340.1(b)). In Los Angeles Unified School Dist. v. Superior Court (2023), the California Supreme Court held that Government Code 818 bars those enhanced damages against a public entity. Section 818 does not protect a private school, church, club or business.

Washington: a duty that follows the relationship

Washington’s statute for childhood sexual abuse claims, RCW 4.16.340, is not limited to suits against the abuser. In C.J.C., the court held it also covers negligence claims against others, such as a church. The court held that a church may owe a duty to take reasonable steps to prevent harm when it has a special relationship with the worker and with the children, and it said “the focus is not on where or when the harm occurred.” It also said an organization “may not turn a blind eye” to a known or reasonably foreseeable risk posed by its agents, while noting that it is not an insurer of everyone’s safety.

Schools are held to a similar duty. In N.L. v. Bethel School Dist. (2016), a high school principal had been told an older student was a registered sex offender and took no action, and that student later assaulted a 14-year-old after the two skipped track practice and left campus. The court held that districts owe students in their care reasonable care to protect them from foreseeable dangers, and that the assault happening off campus did not by itself end the case. Our FAQ on suing a school for sexual abuse covers school claims in all three states.

Texas: the same questions about knowledge and care

Texas allows 30 years for many childhood sexual abuse claims, and the text of CPRC 16.0045 applies to a “suit for personal injury” arising from the listed conduct without limiting who may be sued. A claim against an organization in Texas raises the same questions about what it knew and what it did. For schools that receive federal money, Title IX adds a separate path. The U.S. Supreme Court case that set the damages standard came from a Texas district: in Gebser v. Lago Vista Independent School Dist. (1998), it held that a school is liable for a teacher’s harassment only if an official with authority to act had actual knowledge and responded with deliberate indifference. Texas cases are handled by the firm’s Texas-licensed attorneys, Joyce Ondich and John Efstathiou.

The records that show what an organization knew

Knowledge is usually the center of the case, and organizations tend to write things down. Useful records include personnel files, earlier complaints, incident reports, sign-in sheets, trip rosters, text and email messages, and the written policies on one-on-one contact. Some of those papers may be harder to keep private than an organization expects. In C.J.C., the court held that counseling reports sent to the diocese were not protected, because communications meant to give a third party the results “are not confidential.”

Care facilities for older or disabled adults raise many of the same questions about staffing and supervision. Families can start with our nursing home abuse pages.

What this means for your case

Three questions shape most institutional claims: who was responsible for you at the time, what that organization knew or should have known about the person, and what it did. Filing deadlines depend on the state, your age and the dates, and they are laid out on our sexual abuse statute of limitations page. You decide how much to share and when. If the case moves forward, our page on what happens at a deposition explains one step many survivors ask about. More answers are on our injury law FAQs page.

Common questions

Related pages

Injury law FAQs

Important: This page is general information, not legal or medical advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Every case is different; talk to a lawyer about yours. Texas cases are handled by the firm’s Texas-licensed attorneys, Joyce Ondich and John Efstathiou. Last reviewed: November 7, 2026.