Stark County Youth Minister Grooming Charges Highlight Civil Options for Survivors
For more than a decade, Michael Carlton was a familiar and trusted face at The STAR in the East, a Messianic congregation on Martindale Road NE in Plain Township, near Canton. He served as an elder, and for the past six years, he taught Shabbat school. It’s the kind of role that puts an adult […]
Pending Sexual Abuse Reform Laws to Watch in the Second Half of 2026
For a survivor of sexual abuse, a single date on a calendar can decide whether the courthouse door is open or closed. That is what a statute of limitations does. It sets a deadline, and when reform changes that deadline, it can change whether a survivor is ever able to be heard at all. The […]
Foster Care System Abuse – When the State Becomes the Abuser
When a child is removed from a home for their own safety, the government makes an implicit promise. It promises that the place it chooses next will be safer than the one the child left. For hundreds of thousands of children, that promise holds. For others, the system that was meant to protect them becomes […]
What the Interlochen Investigation Reveals About Institutional Responsibility in Abuse Cases
A newly released independent investigation into the Interlochen Center for the Arts, the renowned Michigan boarding school and summer camp that helped launch the careers of performers such as Josh Groban and Norah Jones, has surfaced roughly seventy allegations of sexual abuse spanning six decades, involving nearly fifty adults who worked for or were affiliated […]
PFAS Chemicals and the Corporations That Knew – Your Rights in the Contamination Litigation Wave
If you or someone you love is facing a diagnosis like cancer, thyroid disease, or another serious illness, and you have started to wonder whether contaminated water or a product played a role, please know two things. What you are feeling, the worry, the anger, the search for answers, is understandable. And a serious illness […]
Labor Trafficking and Corporate Supply Chains – How Businesses Can Be Held Accountable for Forced Labor
If you were made to work against your will, or if you know someone who was, please know this: what happened was not your fault, and you are not alone. When most people hear the word trafficking, they picture sex trafficking. Labor trafficking is far less visible, and survivors of forced labor often wonder whether […]
Medical Device Failures and Corporate Accountability – When the Product Was Never Safe
If you have an implanted medical device that failed, have already had revision surgery, or have learned that something inside your body was recalled, you may have a defective medical device lawsuit available to you. Many patients in this situation assumed for years that a device on the market with FDA involvement must have been […]
When Campus Sexual Assault Civil Litigation Goes Beyond the University’s Title IX Process
For many survivors of campus sexual assault, the university’s internal process ends with a sanction that bears little relationship to what actually happened. A student gets suspended for a semester. A faculty member is quietly reassigned. The survivor is left to keep attending the same campus, sometimes running into the same person, while the institution […]
The Adult Survivors Act Window Is Closed, But New York Still Has Options for Institutional Sexual Abuse Survivors
The Adult Survivors Act window closed on November 24, 2023. For survivors who weren’t ready, didn’t know, or couldn’t file in time, that date felt like a final verdict. It wasn’t. One closed window is not a locked door. Since the ASA expired, New York City has enacted its own lookback window. The Child Victims […]
What Is a Civil Lookback Window – A Guide to Fundamentals Every Survivor Should Know
A civil lookback window (also referred to as a revival window) is a temporary law that may allow survivors of sexual abuse to file civil lawsuits even when the original statute of limitations has already expired. States create lookback windows because most survivors take years, often decades, to come forward, and traditional filing deadlines frequently […]