Adult sexual assault

Legal accuracy check

Chris Schroeder, Esq.

Florida Bar #520381 · D.C. Bar

First published October 5, 2026 · Last checked October 5, 2026

How pages are checked

What it is

Federal law defines sexual assault as “any nonconsensual sexual act proscribed by Federal, tribal, or State law, including when the victim lacks capacity to consent” (34 U.S.C. 12291(a)(35), part of the Violence Against Women Act). The CDC puts it in fewer words: sexual violence is “sexual activity when consent is not obtained or freely given.” Both definitions turn on consent. Neither mentions physical resistance, and neither depends on whether the two people knew each other.

Each state writes its own criminal offenses, and the names and grades differ. A civil claim uses its own terms, usually battery or assault under state law, and does not depend on how a prosecutor would label the conduct.

It is common. According to the CDC, citing its National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey for 2023 and 2024, “nearly half of women and more than 1 in 6 men experienced some form of contact sexual violence in their lifetimes.” The CDC adds that the perpetrator “is usually someone the survivor knows,” such as a friend, a current or former partner, a coworker, a neighbor or a family member. The Bureau of Justice Statistics’ National Crime Victimization Survey estimated 560,890 rape or sexual assault victimizations of people age 12 or older in 2024, a rate of 2.0 per 1,000 (Criminal Victimization, 2024, September 2025).

Reporting: your choices

Whether to report, to whom, and when are decisions for the person who was assaulted. The same Bureau of Justice Statistics report found that 24% of rape or sexual assault victimizations in 2024 were reported to police, down from 46% in 2023. Not reporting is the more common path, and it does not close off a civil claim.

Police. A police report starts a criminal investigation. From there the decision to charge belongs to a prosecutor, not to the person who reported. Our guide to reporting abuse explains what follows each route, and our page on civil and criminal cases explains why a declined charge does not decide a civil claim.

Medical care and advocacy. RAINN’s hotline routes each call to a local sexual assault service provider, and a local rape crisis center can usually provide an advocate who can attend interviews with you. Calling the hotline is not a police report.

Work. Assault or harassment by a supervisor, coworker or customer can be reported inside the employer and to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The EEOC’s own guidance is that a charge must generally be filed within 180 calendar days, extended to 300 days where a state or local agency enforces a similar law.

School. At a college that receives federal funds, Title IX, 20 U.S.C. 1681, bars discrimination on the basis of sex, and the college has its own reporting process. Our page on colleges and universities covers campus reporting and claims.

Images. If intimate images are shared or threatened, our page on online exploitation and sextortion explains removal requests and reporting.

Civil claims that may apply

A civil claim can be brought against the person who committed the assault, whether or not that person was ever charged. It may also reach a business or organization whose own conduct made the assault possible. Whether it does depends on the state, the setting and the facts. These are the settings that most often produce claims against a third party, with the pages that follow them.

Employers. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. 2000e-2, covers employers with 15 or more employees. The Supreme Court held in Faragher v. City of Boca Raton (1998) that an employer can be liable for harassment by a supervisor, subject to a defense where it took reasonable care. In Vance v. Ball State University (2013) it held that for a coworker, the employer is liable “only if it was negligent in controlling working conditions.” Our workplace page covers these claims and the state-law routes beside them.

Rideshare. Lawsuits alleging that Uber and Lyft did not adequately screen drivers or protect riders are consolidated in the federal court for the Northern District of California. On October 1, 2026, the Uber litigation, MDL No. 3084, had 4,916 pending actions and the Lyft litigation, MDL No. 3171, had 134, according to the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation. These are allegations. Uber has contested liability at trial and appealed; Lyft is contesting the claims in court, and we found no public statement from Lyft on them. See our Uber and Lyft pages.

Other settings. Claims also arise against doctors and hospitals, massage businesses, hotels, nursing homes, prisons and jails, the military, and religious organizations. Each page explains who may be responsible in that setting. The full list is on our institutions hub.

Two federal rules that apply across settings. Under the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act, 9 U.S.C. 402, a person alleging sexual assault can choose court over an arbitration clause signed before the dispute, for claims arising or accruing on or after March 3, 2022. The Speak Out Act (December 7, 2022) makes nondisclosure and nondisparagement clauses agreed to before such a dispute unenforceable in court. Where intimate images were shared without consent, 15 U.S.C. 6851 gives a federal civil claim against the person who shared them, and the court may let the plaintiff proceed under a pseudonym.

Time limits. Deadlines for adult claims vary by state and by defendant, and a claim against a public agency can carry a written notice requirement that runs out first. New York’s Adult Survivors Act opened a one-year window on November 24, 2022 for claims that had expired; it closed in November 2023. Our statute of limitations reference covers each state. Survivors can often sue under initials, which our guide to filing anonymously explains.

Support resources

RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Hotline, 800-656-4673, is free, confidential and open every hour, and its online chat needs no phone call. Men can reach 1in6’s online helpline. The 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline takes calls and texts at 988. None of these is a police report, and none requires your name.

Trauma and healing describes support that does not depend on any legal step, and our guide to browsing safely explains how to keep reading private on a shared device. The other pages in this section cover child sexual abuse, grooming, online exploitation and sextortion and sex trafficking, and all of them are listed on the types of abuse hub.

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