LOS ANGELES — For weeks, women have publicly shared stories of alleged sexual abuse by Bill Cosby with the expectation that any lawsuits they might file would be blocked due to statutes of limitations.

On Tuesday, however, a woman who claims Cosby molested her in a bedroom of the Playboy Mansion around 1974 filed a sexual battery lawsuit, using an exemption that allows victims of childhood sexual abuse to sue decades after the incident.

Judy Huth contends she was 15 when Cosby abused her and filed the lawsuit in Los Angeles because she only recently became aware of psychological damage caused by the incident. Meg Garvin, a law professor and executive director of the National Crime Victim Law Institute, said statute of limitations laws that limited victims reflect an outdated public policy.