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	Whitbourne Abuse Cases Can't Be Tried Together: Court CBC News [Canada] February 9, 2007 http://www.cbc.ca/canada/newfoundland-labrador/story/2007/02/09/whitbourne-suits.html The Newfoundland Supreme Court has ruled that a string of civil lawsuits involving physical and sexual abuse at a boys' correctional facility cannot be tried together. Twenty-two former residents of the former Whitbourne Boys Home are suing over abuse they said happened decades ago. The suits name various parties. The Newfoundland and Labrador government is named in all of them. Most suits name now-deceased Roman Catholic priest Ronald Bromley and the Roman Catholic Episcopal Corp. of Grand Falls, which supervised Bromley. One suit is against the Salvation Army, while two actions name two former employees at the Whitbourne Boys Home. In a recent decision Justice James Adams rejected an application to have all of the cases heard at one time, noting that the actions are in various states of readiness for trial, and not all of the suits have common issues. Adams ruled that the suits can be handled relatively expeditiously on an individual basis. "The issues are not particularly complex," he wrote. "They relate to allegations of sexual and/or physical assaults occurring decades ago, in addition to allegations of vicarious liability, negligence and breach of fiduciary duty. While serious in nature, they are matters which have come before the court quite often in the past and the law is fairly well settled in respect of the issues raised." A key figure in many of the suits was Bromley, who provided pastoral care at Whitbourne Boys Home. Bromley was killed in a September 2004 car accident. He had been convicted in 1998 on 31 counts of sexual assault, but subsequently was found not guilty after a second trial was ordered. The Whitbourne Boys Home was replaced by a Newfoundland and Labrador Youth Centre, a correctional facility in Whitbourne for young offenders.
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