Lawyer defends $30M settlement offer for Lower Mainland victims of 'Mount Cashel Six'

Agreeing to a $30-million settlement for students who suffered sexual, physical and psychological abuse while attending two Vancouver-area Catholic boys high schools as far back as 50-years ago is better than a protracted legal battle, according to a lawyer for the plaintiffs.

"We're motivated by the fact that we have a significant fund of money," said Joe Fiorante. "We can do some real good right now for survivors, and that's what's driving this settlement at this time."

If approved, former students at St. Thomas More between 1976 and 1989, and Vancouver College between 1976 and 2013, who claim to have been victims of abuse by members of the Christian Brothers, can apply for compensation out of the settlement pool. 

The number of claimants is expected to exceed 200, according to Fiorante. 

"A very significant number of those involved physical abuse by the Christian Brothers, and tragically there are a number of serious sexual abuse claims that we're aware of," he said. 

In B.C., it's common for class action lawyers to receive one-third of the payment pool as their fee, meaning the actual amount of money available to victims could be closer to $20 million.

A two-tiered payment scheme is being proposed for successful claimants related to the severity of abuse and damages suffered. Tier 1 payments will be capped at $30,000 and Tier 2 payments capped at $1 million.

The court case was started in 2021 by Darren Liptrot, a former student at Vancouver College, who claims he was physically and sexually abused by teacher Edward English in the early 1980s.

Unbeknownst to students in the school at the time, English had confessed in 1975 to abusing boys at the Mount Cashel Orphanage in St. John's, Newfoundland. The Christian Brothers, police and government officials in Newfoundland struck a deal to avoid charges if English was sent out of the province to B.C.

The lawsuit alleges six Christian Brothers with a history of abuse — known as the Mount Cashel Six — were eventually transferred to St. Thomas More and Vancouver College.

Fiorante said as the representative plaintiff, Liptrot is happy with the settlement offer. 

"He's very firmly of the view that this is a good outcome," said Fiorante. "He's paved the way for a lot of others to get some resolution of what happened to them, to get some recognition and some sense of justice."

In Newfoundland, a $104 million class action settlement related to 350 claimants of Catholic cleric sex abuse in the Mount Cashel Orphanage case has been dragging through the court for decades, so long that an estimated 15 per cent of class members are now deceased with the bulk of payments still pending from the bankrupt Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. John's.

In the Liptrot case, the "settling defendants" are listed as Vancouver College Ltd., St. Thomas More Collegiate Ltd., and the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Vancouver.