Missouri at a glance
Rules, not your dateChild sexual abuse: the civil deadline
Against the abuser: until age 31, or 3 years from discovery, whichever is later. Since 2025 this rule applies to actions arising on or after Aug. 28, 2025; how it applies to earlier abuse is unsettled. Against others, such as institutions: generally 5 years after age 21. The rule is in Mo. Rev. Stat. § 537.046.
That is the deadline for a civil lawsuit, a claim for money damages. A criminal prosecution runs on a separate clock set by the state’s criminal code, and a report to police can be made whether or not a civil claim is still open. How the two differ.
Adult sexual assault: the civil deadline
2 years for assault and battery claims; 5 years for other injury claims such as negligence. The rule is in Mo. Rev. Stat. §§ 516.140, 516.120(4).
Revival and lookback windows
Missouri has not enacted a window that revives sexual abuse claims whose deadline had already passed.
A revival window, sometimes called a lookback window, lets survivors file claims that had already expired, for a set period. Closed windows stay listed here with their dates, because a claim filed while one was open may still be moving through the courts. Every state’s window, side by side.
Claims against public entities
No general notice-of-claim rule. Sovereign immunity is waived only for injuries from the operation of motor vehicles and from dangerous conditions of public property, so immunity, not notice, is the main barrier to claims against public schools and counties. See Mo. Rev. Stat. § 537.600.
A claim against a public body often needs a written notice filed with that body first, and the notice period can be far shorter than the deadline for the lawsuit itself.
Active lawsuits and institutions in Missouri
We do not track a lawsuit filed in Missouri on this site as of October 7, 2026. Several of the cases we track are national proceedings rather than state ones; see every lawsuit we track and abuse by type of institution.
The deadlines described here are general rules, and most of them have exceptions. The date that governs a particular claim turns on the state, the person’s age when the abuse happened, when they connected it to the harm it caused, and who the defendant is. A claim against a public agency or a public school can carry a written notice requirement that runs out long before the ordinary deadline.
Nothing on this page can tell you your own date. A lawyer who looks at your facts can, and there is no charge to ask.
- Mo. Rev. Stat. § 537.046 (childhood claims). Accurate as of October 7, 2026.
- Mo. Rev. Stat. §§ 516.140, 516.120(4) (adult claims). Accurate as of October 7, 2026.
- Mo. Rev. Stat. § 537.600 (notice to public entities). Accurate as of October 7, 2026.
- CHILD USA, statute of limitations research (used as a cross-check, not as the source of any rule above).
