SASKATOON – A class-action lawsuit alleging students were physically, sexually, and emotionally abused at a school for the deaf in Saskatoon will go ahead.
In a decision filed in Regina Court of King’s Bench, Saskatchewan Chief Justice Martel Popescul certified the class-action suit for former students who attended R.J.D. Williams Provincial School for the Deaf between 1955 and 1991.
“A class action is the preferable procedure,” he ruled Nov. 9.
The plaintiffs allege that they were physically, sexually, and emotionally abused by their teachers, staff, and other students. The former students seek punitive, aggravated, and exemplary damages and costs.
Court documents reveal that a sticking point between Tony Merchant, who represents the plaintiffs, and Jeffrey Brick who represents the Government of Saskatchewan, was whether the students should be able to sue the province in a class-action suit.
Counsel for the plaintiffs argued that the vast majority of cases decided in Canada about institutional abuse cases have been certified as a class action and was the preferable procedure.
Counsel for the defendant, however, argued that with the benefit of hindsight, courts might have declined to certify class-action law-suits.
In his decision, Justice Popescul said that that the history and evolution of the school will be an important aspect in assessing the claim.
“Requiring each prospective plaintiff to call this type of evidence at an individual trial would be unnecessarily costly and time consuming, when this type of evidence need only be called once in a common issues trial.”
In addition, Justice Popescul ruled that Certification would better provide access to justice to a group who might fairly be characterized as vulnerable and disadvantaged.
“Having a common issues trial that focuses on the alleged system breaches would mean, in practical terms, that most individual class members would not need to actively participate in the common issues trial, which would spare them the expense and anxiety that would be required to prove this aspect of their claim within an individual trial. Vulnerability of the group is an appropriate factor to take into account in the preferability assessment.”
The school opened in 1931 and closed in the early 1990s. The class-action lawsuit includes three former students identified in court documents as T.G., R.M. and D.S.
Story corrected to say the school opened in 1931.
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