B.C. lawsuit tied to notorious Mount Cashel Orphanage is heading out of court. Here's why that's significant

John Doe No. 50 wanted to live to see justice.

He sat on his bed across from me with weathered hands resting on tired legs. The sun beamed through the bedroom window behind him, hiding his teary eyes with a darkened silhouette.

It had been 70 years since he was thrown to the wolves at the Mount Cashel Orphanage in St. John's, but he could still close his eyes and go to that place without a moment's notice. 

We spoke in December 2020, as the country's top court was mulling the question of whether the Catholic Church should be responsible for the abuses of the Christian Brothers who ran the orphanage. 

He'd been waiting for that answer since 1999, when he was one of four men to step forward as lead plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit seeking to hold the church responsible.

"There's a lot of our guys who have died," he told me. "They never got to see anything happen. And to me, that's cruel. I only pray that I stay around long enough, not just for compensation, but to have this wiped from my mind, so I don't have to think about this anymore."

John Doe No. 50 died a year after our conversation.

He didn't live to see the end of litigation. Of the four initial claimants, only two remain.

That's the situation survivors are hoping to avoid in British Columbia, where a similar class-action lawsuit is playing out involving some of the same Christian Brothers at a pair of Catholic schools in the Vancouver area.

Six men were transferred from Mount Cashel to Vancouver College and St. Thomas More Collegiate between 1975 and 1981. All six were later convicted of abusing children at the orphanage, which was once a pillar of St. John's society. It closed in 1990 amid an explosive scandal and was later torn down.  

It's alleged the transferred men continued abusing kids physically and sexually after landing in Vancouver. More than 60 former students have come forward to join a class-action lawsuit first filed in 2021. 

The schools fought back against the class action in the beginning, arguing each of the claims should be heard individually. Since losing that argument, they've taken a much different approach — one that lawyers say could spare decades of litigation and millions in legal fees that could be spent on abuse survivors.

"As we move toward reconciliation and resolution, we are now pursuing mediation," reads a statement from Vancouver College posted on its website on Aug. 25.

"As a school community, we see this as a fundamental and necessary first step in this truth, reconciliation, and healing journey," reads a statement from St. Thomas More Collegiate. "We are hopeful that the process would have run its course by year-end."

Mediation could avoid lengthy delays

Joe Fiorante, the lead lawyer for the former students, welcomes the decision. 

"Pursuing everything through the conventional court system takes an incredible amount of time," he said.  "We've seen that in Mount Cashel. Those gentlemen there have been through many trials, many bankruptcy claims, and are still seeking civil justice 50 years later, 60 years later. And that's something that's weighing very heavily on us."

Fiorante said any alternative resolution would have to be rooted in three things: uncovering the truth of what happened at the schools, reconciliation with those who were abused, and compensation for the damage caused by those experiences.

"There will have to be still full disclosure of evidence as to what happened, what the schools knew about the abuse by the Christian Brothers, and what measures they took or didn't take to prevent it," Fiorante said.

Their lawsuit also names the Archdiocese of Vancouver — seeking to hold the church responsible for the Christian Brothers in the same way John Doe No. 50 did in Newfoundland.

The church did not respond to the CBC's requests for comment.

It remains unclear if the Archdiocese of Vancouver is also amenable to mediation, or if it intends to continue litigation.

Fiorante said the mediation process can go ahead without their participation, and litigation could continue separately. 

A key consideration will be the mental health of the men involved. They don't want to see survivors living with the weight of abuse and stress of civil action for any longer than necessary.

They want to avoid worst-case scenarios like John Doe No. 50's death before seeing a resolution.

"We're very cognizant of that part of dealing with the trauma that these men have endured," Fiorante said. "[We're] trying to come up with a system that addresses that trauma and allows them to move forward in a way that avoids some of the lengthy delay and stress that the normal civil litigation model would impose on them."

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