Can Colorado Sexual Abuse Victims File Lawsuits Even If Their Abusers Were Not Criminally Convicted?

Absolutely. There are two different legal systems for criminal charges and civil lawsuits. Abuse victims can file civil lawsuits even if the perpetrators get their criminal cases dismissed or never face charges in the first place.

It is important for victims to understand just how differently these two systems operate. In criminal cases, police tend to investigate everything with a skeptical eye. It may be fair to say they start from a place of doubting victims. In civil cases, a good attorney will start from a place of believing a victim’s story.

The Burden Of Proof

The key reason for these different approaches is what lawyers call the “burden of proof.”

• In criminal cases, the burden of proof is “beyond a reasonable doubt.”
• In civil cases, the burden of proof is a “preponderance of the evidence.”

Effectively, this means that a victim of sexual abuse who files a civil suit needs to convince the jury that their story is more likely to be true than the perpetrator’s story. Another way to think of this is that the civil system demands 51% proof compared to the criminal system’s 99.9% proof.

Too many victims with strong, compelling civil cases give up because the criminal process makes them feel like everything is against them. But that’s the criminal system. It’s important to remember that the civil system works differently and often more compassionately.

The Evidence That Backs Up A Victim’s Story

When you decide to file a civil lawsuit against your abuser, your attorney should begin by believing your story. Then, your attorney should help you determine what evidence you can use to most effectively support your case.

Even though your case may feel, at first, like a matter of “he said, she said,” your attorney should understand that’s how most sexual abuse cases begin. The very nature of sexual abuse cases is that most of them happen behind closed doors. Where criminal prosecutors may feel the lack of witnesses or video evidence might make a case too hard to win, civil attorneys can look for other types of evidence:

• Did the perpetrator send text messages trying to lure the victim to their house?
• Did the victim go to the hospital and get a rape kit done or mention the abuse to a medical provider?
• Did the victim confide in a friend, parent or sibling, either immediately or later on?
• Does the perpetrator have a reputation for similar behaviors?
• In a church or clergy abuse case, was the perpetrator moved around from church to church?
• Have other people filed complaints against the perpetrator or the perpetrator’s organization?
• Is the perpetrator part of a group or culture that normalizes abusive behaviors?

The answers to these questions may provide evidence that’s too circumstantial to win a criminal case, but it may very well be strong enough to support a civil lawsuit.

How Trauma-Informed Attorneys Can Process Sexual Abuse Cases

Sexual abuse victims want to work with trauma-informed attorneys and staff because they understand how to treat victims with compassion and respect. They’ll know how hard it was just to make that first phone call.

However, the value of a trauma-informed approach goes beyond mere compassion. The trauma caused by sexual abuse can radically alter a person’s brain structure and functioning. It can lead to overactive fear, impaired memory processing, difficulty regulating emotions and heightened sensitivity to perceived threats.

For example, someone who has not experienced sexual abuse might not think much about a random TSA screening at an airport. But someone who has experienced sexual abuse might react quite differently to the idea of having one or two agents bring her out of the line, behind closed doors, away from cameras and witnesses, to submit to someone checking their groin. The stress or panic that an abuse victim may register is a real and valid response, and a trauma-informed attorney can help you recognize those signs of trauma as evidence that might support your case. 

Trauma shows up differently in each person. It is very individualized. Still, there are often themes to how the trauma appears. Trauma-informed teams will recognize these signs and adjust their approach to the victim as well as the case.