FILE – Bill Cosby arrives for a sentencing hearing following his sexual assault conviction at the Montgomery County Courthouse in Norristown Pa. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)
A federal judge in Las Vegas allowed a group of women to move forward with their lawsuit against Bill Cosby after a new Nevada state law abolished the statute of limitations for civil claims by survivors of sexual violence.
In 2023, Nevada adopted SB 129, the Justice for Victims of Crime bill, which lifted the civil statute of limitations for adult sexual assault survivors. Following passage of the new law, a group of 10 women sued Cosby for sexual assault, battery, assault, intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligent infliction of emotional distress, and false imprisonment. Like many of the other women who have said they were victimized by the actor, the Nevada plaintiffs each alleged that allege that from the early 1970s through the early 1990s, Cosby “lured them into an isolated environment, drugged, or attempted to drug them, and then sexually assaulted them.”
Cosby asked the court to dismiss the claims against him on both procedural and substantive grounds. Although U.S. District Judge Gloria Navarro agreed to dismiss the sexual assault claims on the grounds that sexual assault itself is a crime and not a state tort, she left the majority of the plaintiffs’ claims intact and sided with them on nearly all legal arguments raised by Cosby.
Cosby argued that one woman’s allegation against him did not meet the legal definition of “sexual assault,” and was therefore not within the scope of SB 129. Specifically, Cosby said that “forced masturbation” as alleged by some of the plaintiffs was not “sexual assault,” because it did not include penetration of a victim’s genitals.
Navarro, however, said that the definition of sexual assault likely does encompass “a person … forc[ing] another person to masturbate him with her hand against her will.” Navarro said that while she believed the alleged conduct fell within the scope of SB 129, she will submit a certification order to the Nevada Supreme Court to give the state’s highest court the opportunity to interpret its own state law. While that inquiry proceeds, however, Cosby’s request to dismiss the case is rejected and discovery will proceed.
Cosby also argued that SB 129 is itself illegal, because it punishes those who committed sexual assault differently from others who committed “other heinous crimes.”
Navarro rejected that argument outright, writing, “Although victims of other crimes classified by defendant may suffer similar trauma and be reluctant to report, defendant has not shown how these other crimes are of the ‘uniquely intimate’ nature such that their victims stand on precisely the same ground as sexual assault victims.”
Similarly, Navarro threw out Cosby’s contention that SB 129 violated the due process clauses of the Nevada and U.S. Constitution, because it deprives him of a “property right.” Navarro explained that it is already well-settled that statutes of limitation do not create property rights under the U.S. Constitution and there is no reason to arrive at any conflicting conclusion under Nevada’s state constitution.
Likewise, Navarro dismissed the argument that SB 129 created an ex post facto law by punishing conduct retroactively.
“SB 129 was not enacted to punish perpetrators of sexual assault, but instead to compensate survivors and foster healing,” Navarro wrote.
Navarro also declined to sever the plaintiffs’ claims into separate lawsuits on the basis that the plaintiffs “establish[ed] a pattern by bringing the exact same causes of action against the exact same Defendant.”
Cosby, whose criminal rape convictions were overturned by a Pennsylvania Supreme Court in 2021, was ordered to pay $500,000 to a woman after a California jury found Cosby sexually abused her at the Playboy Mansion in 1975 when she was 16 years old.
Cosby faces lawsuits in New York under a similar “lookback window” law known as the New York Adult Survivors Act.
Attorneys for the parties did not immediately respond to request for comment.
You can read Navarro’s full order here.
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