New York City Council Passes Landmark Amendment To Victims Of Gender-Motivated Violence Protection Law, Overriding Mayor's Veto

On January 29, 2026, the New York City Council voted to override then-Mayor Eric Adams's veto of Int. No. 1297-A.

Effective immediately, the bill significantly amends New York City's Victims of Gender-Motivated Violence Protection Law ("VGM") (N.Y.C. Admin. Code §§ 10-1101, et seq.) to include § 10-1104.1, which provides an eighteen-month window for victims of "crimes of violence motivated by gender" occurring prior to January 9, 2022, to pursue a private right of action against "a[ny] party who commits, directs, enables, participates in, or conspires in the commission of [the] crime."

Because "crimes of violence motivated by gender" includes sexual abuse by definition (see Engleman v. Rofe, 194 A.D.4d 26, 33 (1st Dep't 2021) [holding sexual acts committed without consent inherently constitute malice or ill will based on gender]), § 10-1104.1 effectively provides victims of sexual abuse eighteen months from January 29, 2026 (i.e., through July 29, 2027), to pursue civil claims against abusers and their enablers, provided the abuse occurred prior to January 9, 2022. (Abuse occurring on or after January 9, 2022 is governed by N.Y.C. Admin. Code § 11-1105, which requires that an action be commenced within seven years of the crime or nine years from the cessation of disability, as defined.) The statute also permits plaintiffs to amend or refile dismissed VGM suits brought between March 1, 2023 and March 1, 2025, as those suits did not permit claims against enablers pre-dating 2022.

Notably, the VGM was originally enacted in 2000, in response to the United State Supreme Court's decision in United States v. Morrison, 529 U.S. 598 (2000), which struck down the Violence Against Women Act ("VAWA") as unconstitutional. Because § 10-1104.1 reaches all abuse occurring prior to January 9, 2022, it reaches abuse occurring prior to the enactment of the VGM itself.

Int. 1297-A amounts to a legislative overruling of the First Department's decision in S.S. v. Rockefeller Univ. Hosp., 239 A.D.3d 424 (1st Dep't 2025), which, as discussed in the June 2025 CVA/HTA Practice Group Newsletter, applied the Legislature's 2022 amendments to the VGM (which added the "Abettor Provision") prospectively rather than retroactively.

The amendment follows in the wake of the statewide Child Victims Act ("CVA") and Adult Survivors Act ("ASA"), which, together, revived all causes of action arising from sexual abuse, as defined in the Penal Law, for (roughly) two-year periods and significantly lengthened the statutes of limitations for prospective plaintiffs. Then-Mayor Adams vetoed Int. No. 1297-A on December 24, 2025, labeling it "a debit card for a single law firm to make a $300 million withdrawal from city coffers" and decrying "a potential $1 billion shortfall or cut [to] social services."

You can read more about the Firm's CVA/HTA Practice Group and its defense of VGM, CVA, ASA, and related actions here.

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