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	Lawsuits Involving Former Priest Still Moving Forward By Tina Comeau The Vanguard August 17, 2009 http://www.novanewsnow.com/article-367071-Lawsuits-involving-former-priest-still-moving-forward.html The civil lawsuits of men, who say as boys they were abused by a parish priest, are trudging along, despite the fact that in the seven months since the first statements of claim were filed with the Supreme Court, the dioceses named in the actions have yet to file statements of defence. “We’re not slowing down our case at all waiting on the defence,” Aaron Lealess, an articling clerk with the law firm Ledroit and Beckett said in a recent interview. “A lot of time has passed but statements of defence don’t really say much. Usually…they can get away with some as simple as a very short statement saying, ‘We deny everything set out in the claim.’” The Ontario law firm, which specializes in cases of victims of sexual abuse, is representing 11 men who say Father Adolphe LeBlanc abused them. Father LeBlanc was a parish priest in Wedgeport from 1955 to 1964. Other parishes he was assigned to included Amherst, Salmon River, Comeau’s Hill and St. Ambrose. LeBlanc died in 1971. In January two men went public – Wedgeport resident Raymond Boudreau and former Wedgeport resident Kenneth Boudreau – saying they were abused by the priest when they were altar boys. A week later Kenneth’s brother Del Boudreau broke his silence about the abuse he too says he suffered. Others have come forward too but have chosen to remain anonymous. Individual civil suits claiming $2 million for each victim have been filed against the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Halifax and the Diocese of Yarmouth. The men, now mostly in their 60s, say shame, embarrassment and fear kept them from coming forward when the alleged abuse was happening. As they grew older – and they were still haunted by the abuse – many never told their families. But as the saying goes, there’s strength in numbers. Watching others come forward has given them the strength to speak out to right a wrong, to shed light on childhood abuse and to change how these matters are handled by the church. Lealess says they’ve been gathering medical, educational and employment records on each person. “In the court process anytime there is a law suit each side exchanges their affidavit of documents, which is all the records they have,” he says. “For us to get the records of the diocese on Father LeBlanc and on their protocols or any procedures that they had for sex abuse prevention, we have to exchange our documents for our clients.” The exchange of documents is followed up with a question and answer session for each side. Asked what the firm expects to receive, Lealess says they don’t know for certain. “What we’ve seen in other cases is they usually have letters of the priest’s ordination and letters from seminary that talk about the performance of the priest,” he says. “In some cases where a priest has been caught and moved to another parish they don’t say exactly what happened. They use euphemisms and beat around the bush a little bit so we don’t often find anything too alarming, but it is good to track down where the priest was.” Meanwhile, earlier this month the Antigonish Diocese announced it would fund up to $13 million to compensate anyone who was sexually abused by a priest that was a member of that diocese. The announcement came in response to a class-action lawsuit that had been filed. "I want to formally apologize to every victim and to their families for the sexual abuse that was inflicted upon those who were entitled instead to the trust and protection of priests,'' said diocese Bishop Raymond Lahey. The settlement has to be approved by the Supreme Court during a September hearing. Lealess notes with a class-action lawsuit such as the one in Antigonish, there is one large set dollar amount that is divided up among all of the victims who join the suit. In the cases involving allegations against Father LeBlanc, his firm has opted instead to file individual lawsuits for each victim. “We find with the individual lawsuit it gives clients more flexibility. They can choose how much they want to settle their case for,” Lealess says. “If there are clients that want to fight it and go as hard as they can and take it all the way to the courthouse, we can do that. For the clients who don’t really want to revisit the memories as much as necessary they can settle their cases a bit earlier.”
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