Deserved Recognition Goes to Battler of Clergy Abuse

I introduced a local lawyer last weekend and awarded him a Courageous Advocacy Award on behalf of the Atlantic Provinces Trial Lawyers Association. His life has intersection with an important piece of our legal history, the battle to obtain compensation in money damages for victims of clergy abuse.

It is my pleasure to introduce Gregory B. Stack and his wife Wanda.  Greg Stack has come to public prominence in Newfoundland and Labrador chiefly through his leadership in the litigation against the now notorious Roman Catholic priest, Father Kevin Bennett, in a lengthy litigation which settled only late last year. 

Greg told me that his involvement with priest sexual abuse cases goes back to the time of the Mount Cashel scandal, when he and now Premier Danny Williams agreed to assist each other in effective representation of legal claimants and it developed that Greg would handle the priest cases, and Danny would handle the Mount Cashel cases.  And that’s what they did.

In the late 1980’s Greg took on several dozen abuse claims primarily arising out of the depredations of the now notorious Father Hickey.  By 1997 the Archdiocese of St. John’s decided to settle the priest claims, but this did not include the Father Bennett claims arising out of his activities in the remote rural Archdiocese of St. George’s. 

Greg and his clients prevailed after trial in 2002 on liability alone, which was appealed by the hardnosed church authorities.  In 2002, the church got lucky – the Court of Appeal for Newfoundland and Labrador divided 2 to 1 on the issue of vicarious liability and the majority resurrected an old line of cases and conferred charitable immunity on the church in respect to the vicarious liability issue.  Although direct liability was not disturbed, vicarious liability had implications for insurance coverage and the matter went on leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada.  I’ve always thought that the Supreme Court of Canada is a terrific court if you can just get there, and Greg and his clients did, obtaining a judgment in 2004 which firmly overturned the Court of Appeal, stating that the evidence overwhelmingly satisfied the tests set out in previous Supreme Court of Canada jurisprudence.  It also awarded costs of the appeal and cross-appeal on a solicitor-client basis, only the second time in memory that this was done.

I’ll just read one paragraph from the Supreme Court decision, which gives the context in which Bennett was able to work his depredations: 

The plaintiffs perceived him as a god – quite logically given his centrality in the community and the disparity in lifestyles between himself and his parishioners.  As the school principal testified, “it was like having a celebrity in the community that you had to treat properly.  There were incidents where I found people believed that the priest could turn you into a goat.”  While Bennett had a particularly forceful personality, the root of his power over his victims lay in his role as a priest, conferred by the Bishop.  The awe in which Father Bennett was held by the community at large contributed to his ability to control his victims and thus to satisfy a prodigious appetite for constant sexual gratification.

The Bennett case was beset by many intricate and complex legal issues, and as the reversal in the Court of Appeal shows, was fraught with risk.  Greg Stack’s clients may have been betrayed by the church, but they have been well and truly represented by Greg Stack, who has delivered access to justice courageously and in the finest traditions of the plaintiff bar.  I give you Greg Stack.