HARVEY v. MERCHAN

A woman, now in her mid-40s, sued her parents for damages from sexual abuse she says happened repeatedly from early childhood until she was 22, first in Quebec and later after the family moved to Savannah, Georgia. She relied on a temporary Georgia law that revived otherwise time-barred childhood sexual abuse claims for a two-year window in 2015 and 2016. Her parents argued the claims were too old and that the revival law could not cover abuse that happened outside Georgia, and they also challenged the law's constitutionality. The Supreme Court of Georgia held that Georgia law governs the abuse that occurred in Georgia and Quebec law governs the abuse that occurred there, but the revival statute's definition of childhood sexual abuse is broad enough to cover the Quebec-based acts too. The court sent the case back to the trial court to decide, claim by claim, whether Quebec's own time limit or Georgia's is shorter and therefore controls. The court also rejected the parents' constitutional challenges.

The revival provision's definition of childhood sexual abuse is broad enough to cover acts committed outside Georgia, so the woman can pursue claims for abuse in both Quebec and Georgia; Georgia substantive law applies to Georgia-based abuse and Quebec substantive law to Quebec-based abuse, with the shorter of the two jurisdictions' time limits controlling the Quebec claims, and the revival law violates neither Georgia's ban on retroactive laws nor due process or equal protection rights.

The ruling clarifies that Georgia's now-expired revival window for childhood sexual abuse claims could reach abuse that happened outside Georgia, potentially affecting other pending or past cases involving abuse that crossed state or national borders, and confirms that such revival statutes do not violate Georgia's retroactivity or equal protection guarantees.

Affirmed in part, vacated in part, and remanded

1. The court applied the traditional conflict-of-laws rule called lex loci delicti (Latin for 'place of the wrong'), which says a tort is governed by the substantive law of the place where the injury was actually suffered, not where the wrongful act began.
2. Because each instance of alleged abuse caused an immediate, known injury, the court rejected the 'continuing tort' theory (which delays when a claim starts running until a hidden injury is finally discovered), since that theory applies only when both the wrong and the injury are unknown to the victim at the time, unlike violent abuse where the harm is immediately apparent.
3. Applying that rule, the court held Georgia substantive law governs abuse that happened in Georgia and Quebec substantive law governs abuse that happened in Quebec, since the place of injury determines which state's underlying law applies.
4. On timing rules, the court explained that while Georgia's statute of limitations normally applies as the law of the court handling the case, an exception applies when foreign law creates a claim unknown to Georgia common law and sets its own specific time limit, in which case the shorter of the two time limits controls; because Quebec's civil law claim for sexual abuse fits this exception, the trial court must compare Quebec's 30-year filing period to Georgia's rules to see which is shorter.
5. Interpreting the wording of the revival statute, the court found that its phrase 'would be in violation of' Georgia criminal laws does not require the abuse to have happened in Georgia, so acts committed in Quebec can still qualify as 'childhood sexual abuse' under the revival law.
6. The court rejected the parents' constitutional arguments, holding that reviving expired civil claims through a new limitations period is a procedural change, not a retroactive substantive law, and that treating pre-2015 and post-2015 abuse claims differently survives the lenient 'rational basis' review because lawmakers had reasonable, non-arbitrary reasons for the distinction.

• childhood sexual abuse
• statute of limitations revival
• Quebec law
• retroactive laws
• equal protection