Skip to main content

Social Services Law § 420 · Title 6. Child Protective Services

Penalties for failure to report

Verbatim from the official edition

Text — Law content up to date as of October 2, 2026, as published by the New York State Senate (Open Legislation)

§ 420. Penalties for failure to report. 1. Any person, official or institution required by this title to report a case of suspected child abuse or maltreatment who willfully fails to do so shall be guilty of a class A misdemeanor.

2. Any person, official or institution required by this title to report a case of suspected child abuse or maltreatment who knowingly and willfully fails to do so shall be civilly liable for the damages proximately caused by such failure.

Source of truth

Edition
Law content up to date as of October 2, 2026, as published by the New York State Senate (Open Legislation)
Official file
https://legislation.nysenate.gov/pdf/laws/SOS420
Text hash
sha256 51ddfbb89781369eb3630c288e06c124879acbffcd5c4639a2dff04c8a044224
Composed by
gen_ny_statutes.py 2026-11-10: the Senate's Open Legislation law tree (GET /api/3/laws/<ID>?full=true) read in document order; the Senate's PDF of the whole law (GET /pdf/laws/<ID>?full=true), read with PDFium, prints the same words in the same order

Procedural information only. Not legal advice and not a substitute for the advice of an attorney. Confirm the current text with the official publisher before relying on it.