If someone harmed you in a criminal act, you can file a crime victim lawsuit against the person who did it and, in many situations, against a property owner, employer, or institution whose negligence made the crime possible. Civil court runs on a separate track from criminal prosecution, uses a lower burden of proof, and lets you recover a wider range of losses than criminal restitution covers. You do not need a conviction, or even criminal charges, to win.
Who You Can Sue
The most direct claims are against the person who harmed you. A physical attack supports a civil battery claim (knowingly causing bodily harm) or civil assault (conduct that placed you in reasonable fear of harm). Fraud covers false statements made to induce you to act. Intentional infliction of emotional distress covers conduct so extreme it goes “beyond all possible bounds of decency.”
You are not limited to suing the attacker. Third parties can be liable when their negligence created the conditions for the crime.
Property Owners: Negligent Security
The most common third-party theory is negligent security, a form of premises liability. To win, you have to show the owner had a duty to provide reasonable safety, breached that duty by failing to implement adequate security, and that the failure directly caused your harm.
The central question is foreseeability: whether the owner should have known criminal activity was likely. Courts look at the history of similar crimes on or near the property, internal security logs, and police reports. Common failures that produce liability include broken lighting, missing or defective locks, nonfunctional surveillance cameras, and the absence of security personnel.
These cases can produce substantial recoveries. The family of a teenage girl fatally shot at an apartment complex with a documented history of violence reached an $8 million settlement after evidence showed the front gates were broken and security guards were not on duty. A Harris County, Texas jury awarded $4.3 million after finding that an apartment complex failed to address broken gates, inadequate lighting, and a lack of cameras or patrols. A 2026 settlement involving a fatal shooting at a Florida short-term rental community reached $16.25 million.
Employers
Employers can be sued for negligent hiring, retention, or supervision if they failed to investigate an employee’s background or kept someone on staff they knew or should have known posed a danger. Under vicarious liability, an employer may be responsible for harmful acts committed by an employee within the scope of their duties.
Schools, Hotels, and Government
Several statutes give victims specific grounds to sue institutions.
Title IX lets students sue federally funded schools that were “deliberately indifferent” to known sexual violence or harassment. A school must have had actual notice through an official with authority to act, and its response must have been clearly unreasonable. Courts have held that Title IX “does not require educational institutions to take heroic measures” or “craft perfect solutions,” but a response so deficient as to be clearly unreasonable can trigger liability.
The Trafficking Victims Protection Act (18 U.S.C. ยง 1595) gives trafficking survivors a civil claim against perpetrators and against anyone who “knowingly benefits” from participation in a trafficking venture they knew or should have known about. This has fueled lawsuits against hotel chains, with courts in New Jersey allowing claims to proceed where staff allegedly ignored visible red flags such as excessive foot traffic to a room, cash-only payments, and refusal of housekeeping services. The deadline is ten years from when the claim arose, or ten years after a minor victim turns 18.
Section 1983 of the Civil Rights Act allows suits against government employees or entities that violate constitutional rights while acting under color of state law. The path is narrower than many victims assume. In DeShaney v. Winnebago County (1989), the Supreme Court held that the government has no general constitutional duty to protect individuals from privately inflicted harm. In Town of Castle Rock v. Gonzales (2005), the Court ruled that police cannot be sued for failing to enforce a restraining order, even when a statute appears to make enforcement mandatory. A narrow “state-created danger” exception applies where government actors affirmatively place someone in harm’s way.
Some states add their own causes of action. Several allow civil suits for stalking. Hate crime statutes in many jurisdictions provide civil remedies for bias-motivated violence. Illinois holds parents liable for up to $30,000 in damages caused by the willful or malicious acts of a minor, and the state’s Dram Shop Act permits lawsuits against businesses that served alcohol to someone who then caused injury.
You Do Not Need a Criminal Conviction
A civil case is independent of the criminal case. You are the plaintiff, you choose the attorney, you decide whether to settle or go to trial, and you control strategy. The standard of proof is “preponderance of the evidence”: you have to show only that the defendant is more likely than not responsible. That is much lower than the criminal standard of “beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Civil defendants also lack some criminal-trial protections. They cannot invoke the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, and jury verdicts do not always need to be unanimous.
Because the systems are separate, you can pursue both at once, and a criminal acquittal does not bar a civil suit. O.J. Simpson was acquitted of murder in his 1995 criminal trial; a civil jury found him liable for the deaths of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman in 1997 and awarded the families $33.5 million in damages.
What You Can Recover
Civil damages fall into three groups.
Economic damages cover documented financial losses: past and future medical and therapy expenses, lost wages, lost earning capacity, disability-related costs such as home modifications or in-home care, funeral expenses, and property damage.
Noneconomic damages compensate for harm that is not a receipt: pain and suffering, emotional distress, loss of enjoyment of life, humiliation, reputational harm, and loss of consortium (available to a victim’s spouse for loss of companionship and the marital relationship).
Punitive damages are financial penalties intended to punish particularly egregious conduct and deter similar behavior. They are generally available only after compensatory damages have been established, and courts typically cap them at less than ten times the compensatory award.
Some statutes also allow recovery of attorney fees, particularly in civil rights and employment cases. Courts may order injunctive relief as well, requiring defendants to change policies, implement training, or stop specific conduct.
How This Compares to Criminal Restitution
Restitution is part of a criminal sentence, limited to provable out-of-pocket losses like medical bills, lost wages, and property damage. It does not cover emotional distress, pain and suffering, or future therapeutic costs you cannot yet document. The prosecutor controls the process, and you have little say in whether or how much restitution is ordered.
You can pursue restitution and a civil lawsuit at the same time. A civil settlement does not automatically prevent a criminal judge from ordering restitution, though the judge may reduce the restitution amount to avoid double recovery.
Restitution is also hard to collect. A Government Accountability Office report covering federal cases from 2014 to 2016 found that courts ordered $33.9 billion in restitution but collected only $2.95 billion. As of the end of fiscal year 2016, $110 billion in previously ordered restitution remained outstanding, with $100 billion of that classified as uncollectible because offenders simply could not pay. At the state level, American Bar Association data indicates that only about 45 percent of restitution dollars are actually collected. Civil litigation, by contrast, can reach defendants with deeper pockets, including employers, property owners, and institutions.
How Long You Have to File
Every civil claim has a deadline, and missing it almost always ends the right to sue permanently. Deadlines vary sharply by state and by type of claim. In New York, a civil assault or battery claim must be filed within one year, a wrongful death claim within two years, and a general negligence claim within three. In Maryland, battery and personal injury claims get three years, but assault gets only one. Arizona allows two years for most torts but extends the deadline for child sexual abuse claims until the victim turns 30.
If a criminal case has been filed against the defendant, your civil deadline may be extended. Arizona, for example, gives victims one additional year after the criminal case reaches final disposition. Rules vary by state, so confirm yours before assuming a criminal case buys you time.
Revival Windows for Sexual Abuse Claims
States across the country have enacted laws reopening the courthouse door for sexual abuse survivors whose claims had expired under prior statutes of limitations. These “lookback” or “revival” windows allow previously time-barred claims to be filed during a designated period.
New York’s Adult Survivors Act, signed by Governor Kathy Hochul in May 2022, opened a one-year window beginning in November 2022 for adults who were 18 or older at the time of alleged sexual abuse to file civil lawsuits regardless of when the abuse occurred. By the time the window closed in November 2023, more than 3,000 lawsuits had been filed. Targets included New York City and New York State (with hundreds of cases alleging abuse by corrections officers at Rikers Island), Columbia University, and individuals including former Governor Andrew Cuomo and Sean Combs. The law built on the 2019 Child Victims Act, which provided a similar window for childhood abuse survivors.
Several states have eliminated statutes of limitations for childhood sexual abuse claims entirely, including Colorado, Delaware, Maine, Nevada, New Hampshire, and Vermont. Others have extended deadlines well into adulthood. Pennsylvania allows survivors to file until age 37. New Jersey sets the deadline at 37 years after the victim reaches the age of majority. Maryland’s Child Victims Act of 2023 retroactively eliminated the deadline, with a cap on noneconomic damages of $1.5 million against private institutions and a liability cap of $890,000 per occurrence for public entities.
Whether legislatures can constitutionally revive already-expired claims is contested. As of late 2025, state high courts were split five to five over the prior six years. Maine, Utah, Kentucky, Colorado, and New Hampshire have ruled that expired limitations periods create vested rights that cannot be retroactively revived. Georgia, Vermont, Louisiana, North Carolina, and Maryland have ruled the opposite. In its February 2025 decision upholding the Child Victims Act, Maryland’s Supreme Court held that “the running of a statute of limitations does not establish a vested right to be free from liability.” Maine’s Supreme Court reached the opposite conclusion weeks earlier, striking down the state’s revival provision in a 5-2 decision. The U.S. Supreme Court has held that statutes of limitations are a matter of “legislative grace,” leaving state constitutions as the battleground.
How to Actually File
Start with an attorney. You can hire one for full representation, for limited-scope help with specific tasks, or represent yourself. The National Crime Victim Bar Association offers free attorney referrals. Many personal injury attorneys work on contingency, meaning you pay nothing upfront and the attorney takes a percentage of any recovery.
Confirm the deadline for your specific claim in your state before doing anything else. If a criminal case is pending, coordinate the timing. Filing a civil lawsuit too early can complicate an ongoing criminal investigation, and prosecutors sometimes ask victims to wait. Waiting too long risks the statute of limitations.
The suit begins when your attorney files a complaint with the court, stating the legal basis for the claims and the relief sought, and formally serves it on the defendant. Discovery follows: both sides exchange evidence and information, take depositions, request documents, and use experts. Most civil cases settle before trial. If yours does not, it proceeds to a verdict before a judge or jury, and the losing side may appeal.
If you are also working with the prosecutor on a criminal case, keep both attorneys informed. Statements you make in civil discovery can surface in the criminal case, and vice versa, so the two tracks need to be handled together even though they are legally separate.