## Facts

- An 11-year-old child attended a professional baseball game at Veterans Stadium with an adult family friend and became separated and lost.
- After failing to obtain effective assistance from stadium security, she asked three teenage stadium/concession workers (about 15–16 years old) for help.
- The teenagers led her to a secluded area outside the stadium and sexually assaulted her.
- The child (through a parent/guardian) sued the teenagers for intentional torts arising from sexual assault and sued the stadium operator on negligence-based premises-liability theories.
- In the civil action against the teenagers, they asserted that the child consented to sexual activity and sought to use that alleged consent as a defense and as a basis for comparative negligence/apportionment of fault.

## Issues

1. Whether, in a civil tort action arising from sexual acts with an 11-year-old, defendants may assert the child’s consent as a defense when Pennsylvania law treats children under 13 as incapable of consent to sexual activity.
2. Whether alleged consent by a child under 13 may be used to reduce liability through comparative negligence or fault allocation in a civil sexual-assault case.

## Decision

- The Pennsylvania Supreme Court reversed the lower courts.
- The Court held that, as a matter of law, a child under 13 is conclusively incapable of consenting to sexual acts for purposes of civil liability.
- Consent is unavailable as a defense to civil claims based on sexual assault of a child under 13.
- Comparative negligence or apportionment of fault cannot be premised on the alleged “consent” or participation of a child under 13.
- The case was remanded for further proceedings consistent with these holdings.

## Legal Principles

- A conclusive presumption that children under 13 cannot consent to sexual activity applies in civil tort actions arising from sexual contact.
- Courts may apply criminal-law incapacity rules in civil cases when doing so effectuates legislative policy and child-protection objectives.
- In civil claims for sexual assault involving a child under 13, evidence and arguments framed as the child’s consent are legally irrelevant to liability and may not support comparative-fault reductions.
- Public policy bars shifting responsibility to a child under 13 for sexual conduct through consent-based defenses or fault apportionment.

## Conclusion

The court aligned civil tort doctrine with Pennsylvania’s statutory policy protecting children under 13 by holding they are legally incapable of consenting to sexual acts; defendants therefore may not use consent or comparative negligence to defeat or diminish civil liability for sexual assault involving such children.


C.C.H. v. Phila. Phillies, Inc., 940 A.2d 336 (Pa. 2008)