Hire a Fearless Sexual Assault Lawyer to Defend You
Let us help you determine if you have a sexual abuse case by connecting you with an experienced sexual assault attorney who can evaluate the evidence and help defend your rights.
What Is Sexual Assault?
Sexual assault is an intentional sexual act done against the will of the victim. It’s also known as sexual abuse or sexual battery. Sexual abuse can happen against a child or an adult. Here are some examples of sexual assault behavior:
- Statutory rape, which involves sexual acts with a minor
- Incest, which involves sex with a close relative
- Sexual acts against incapacitated patients
Sexual assault is a serious offense. To make matters worse, victims know their attackers in 90% of U.S. cases. We understand how traumatic the experience can be. We’ll g you with the best resources. One of our trusted sexual assault lawyers can help you gather the evidence you need to create a strong case and force the offender to face the law.
What’s the Difference Between Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment?
Before taking action, it’s important to determine if your case falls under the sexual assault or sexual harassment header. Like sexual assault, sexual harassment involves unwanted sexual actions. However, sexual harassment is not a criminal act. It includes a broad range of unwelcome verbal and more subtle physical sexual attention, typically in a professional setting.
Harassment includes catcalling and quid pro quo offers. It also makes provisions for retaliation. Retaliation might occur if your rejection of a proposed sexual activity is used in employment decisions or verbal sexual harassment interferes with your ability to work by creating a hostile or intimidating work environment.
Sexual assault refers to sexual contact or behavior. It is a crime under both federal and state laws. However, there are slight differences in what constitutes sexual assault, depending on the state you’re in. For example, groping is sexual assault. But what kind of groping qualifies varies state by state.
If you’re unsure what kind of case applies to your incident and what rules apply in your state, please contact our team of experienced attorneys. They can help you determine what legal options remain available to you.
Steps to Take After You Experience Sexual Assault
If you have suffered sexual abuse, understand that this is not your fault. Adults have a right to full autonomy over their bodies in sexual situations and other people have a duty to respect this. When they fail to do so, they deserve to face legal repercussions to reduce the chances of them repeating these actions. Follow these actions to take care of yourself or a loved one:
- Consider calling 911 to report the incident even if you do not know who your attacker is. Having a report on file can help your case if you decide to wait for some time before filing.
- Seek medical attention even if you are not seriously injured. Health care professionals can collect evidence that might prove useful later on. Keep in mind that the window for collecting this forensic evidence is about 72 hours.
- If you know your attacker and are afraid to confront them, call the National Sexual Assault Telephone Hotline for help at 800-656-HOPE.
- Seek legal action. Speak with an experienced lawyer as soon as possible to begin building your case, so you can get justice against your perpetrator.
Entitled Damages as a Victim of Sexual Abuse
It is challenging to recover monetary damages in the case of sexual assault because no liability insurance policies cover sexual abuse acts. If you are successful in recovering damages, you are limited to the abuser’s personal assets.
The exception is when the abuser is a member of an organization such as a church or a hospital. This type of lawsuit is a good approach if the incident occurred at the place of business or institution where the abuser works. The abuser’s organization may be liable under what’s known as “negligent supervision”. This means they failed to provide reliable security to their staff and visitors.
How to Work With an Attorney to Press Charges
Our team of experienced attorneys will work with you to get you justice. They will first identify whether your case should be filed with a criminal or civil court. In a criminal sexual abuse case, the district attorney’s office prosecutes the perpetrator. However, in a civil sexual abuse case, the victim sues the perpetrator and their attorney fights to recover the damages. This is typically the only way that you, as a victim, can fight to receive monetary compensation.
You can rely on one of our trusted attorneys to help navigate you through the process in the case of a civil sexual abuse lawsuit. Civil law has no legal cause of action called “sexual assault”. Therefore, one of our attorneys will work with you to identify another legal theory such as civil assault/battery or intentional infliction of emotional distress, to hold the abuser responsible.
In some cases, the abuser can be tried in both criminal and civil lawsuit cases. If you file a police report and the police investigate and find there’s enough evidence to arrest the abuser, they will face a criminal trial. Then, whether the jury finds the abuser guilty or not, you may still file a civil lawsuit against the perpetrator.
In fact, if the abuser went through a criminal court, this will assist your civil court case by showing that there was enough evidence to persecute the abuser for the sexual assault. Your chances of winning a civil court case against your abuser increases when you work with an experienced and reliable attorney.
Connect With an Experienced Sexual Assault Lawyer
If you or your loved one are a victim of sexual abuse, you might feel frightened. Your abuser might have also threatened you against reporting them. Our team of experienced sexual assault attorneys will work with you to get you the protection and justice you need to move forward.
Submit a request online or call us today at (866) 345-6784 to get in touch with an experienced lawyer in your area!
