Lawsuit against Saskatoon's Legacy Christian Academy, Mile Two Church underway

Roughly two dozen former students of Legacy Christian Academy, and nearly as many lawyers, filled a Court of King’s Bench courtroom in Saskatoon Friday to begin a civil case against a church-operated school.

Nearly a year after organizing a class action lawsuit seeking $25 million dollars in damages against Saskatoon Christian Centre Academy — now called Legacy Christian Academy -- 22 students gathered at the steps of the courthouse happy to begin the legal process.

"It's great to finally be in court now," Caitlin Erickson, a former student at the school from 1992 to 2005, said.

"It's almost been a year since this application was filed and it's just good to get the ball rolling."

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Twenty-five defendants are listed in the lawsuit, including Mile Two Church, which operates the school. The provincial government is also included in the lawsuit.

Friday's court proceedings before Justice Naheed Bardai heard arguments about whether or not defendants should file their statements of defence before or after the lawsuit is certified by a judge.

No one has filed their defence as of yet, but common practice is to wait and file defence statements after the class action is certified.

"Why should the plaintiffs have to tell the defendants everything about what happened and they don't have to respond and say 'here's our position,'" Grant Scharfstein, the lawyer representing the plaintiffs, said.

"We think they should have to and it would be helpful."

At its core, Scharfstein says this case is about correcting the alleged actions of the defendants.

"We are here to right an absolute terrible wrong that has occurred here in this province over decades where everyone has turned a blind eye to it, including the government,” he said.

Former students allege staff routinely paddled students and engaged in "controlling and abusive" behaviour — including a "gay exorcism."

Sexual abuse allegations include a church worker inviting girls into a bathroom where "he would put candy on his penis and have the girl take the candy with her hands or mouth."

"A lot of egregious things went on, and there's really no denying that at this point," Erickson said.

"The thing we've said from day one is we don't want anyone to ever have the same experience that we had, and we feel that there's still not those safety nets in place."

None of the allegations have been proven in court.

Scharfstein said two defendants have not responded to any attempts to be served legal notice, including former Mile Two leader Keith Johnson. However, the courts gave permission to Scharfstein to serve Johnson his legal notice via mail to a church in Oklahoma and another in Texas where Johnson has previously worked as official forms of notice.

A decision on Friday's arguments was reserved for a yet-to-be-determined date.