A Saskatoon judge has dismissed a $25-million class action lawsuit launched in 2022 against Legacy Christian Academy and Mile Two Church.
Court of King’s Bench Justice Rochelle Wempe stayed the suit in a written decision on June 3. The original statement of claim named 22 defendants and alleged systemic abuse of students at the school and church.
Wempe dismissed the claim, citing abuse of process.
“The plaintiffs in this matter failed to immediately disclose settlement agreements they reached with three named defendants,” she wrote.
“I also find the settlement agreements changed the adversarial landscape of the litigation by causing the settling defendants to switch sides.”
In the judgment, Wempe wrote that former Legacy Christian staffer Stephanie Case settled in November 2023, followed by Fran Thevenot and Tracey Johnson in February 2024.
In roughly the same period, claims were also dropped against four others affiliated with the school and church.
The three settlement agreements were not given to the remaining defendants until five months after Case signed, and two months after Thevenot and Johnson signed, and “only disclosed after Mile Two independently learned of the discontinuances and made repeated requests for information from the plaintiffs,” Wempe wrote.
These were not insignificant developments, she said.
“The settlement agreements had the effect of them switching sides,” she wrote.
“The terms of the agreements specifically provided that the settling defendants would co-operate, make themselves available to the plaintiffs and their experts, provide affidavits and sworn responses to written interrogators, attend questioning, disclosure and production of documents, attend as a witness at trial and provide testimony which does not vary from their written responses.”
The plaintiffs said that Mile Two and the other defendants were not hurt by the failure to disclose the settlements. Wempe wrote that is not the point.
“The cases in this regard are clear — no actual prejudice is required for the immediate disclosure rule to be triggered,” she said.
Judge dismisses $25M lawsuit against Saskatoon Christian church, school
Scharfstein Law in Saskatoon is representing the plaintiffs.
Grant Scharfstein said the firm drafted an appeal on June 9 and intend to file it that day.
“The Chambers Judge erred in law in determining that the immediate disclosure rule for settlement agreements applies in Saskatchewan,” the appeal notice said.
It also said the judge “mixed fact and law” by determining that the settlement agreements “changed entirely the litigation landscapes.”
