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"This is a very, very dangerous precedent. Any diocese in the world can now say, 'Look, we'll make a deal with you. We'll put up X number of dollars and we'll enter into a class action. But after that, nobody can ever come after us again.'" — Paul Ledroit, Ledroit Beckett to compensate valid survivors abused by a priest of the diocese since 1950. Another $3 million would be made available to pay legal fees and claimants' costs. McKiggan obtained from the church what he considers a crucial guarantee of its financial obligations — a $15-million debenture, or security agreement, on what he says are all the diocese's property assets. "I know what they have, and we've pretty much got all of it," he says. The deal also contains what became a pair of con- troversial deadlines. Survivors seeking to join the class action need to file a claim form by March 10, 2010 at the latest. Anyone seeking to opt out, and preserve his or her right to sue privately, needed to do so by Dec. 4, 2009. Failure to follow either option would extinguish any individual rights to sue. There are also two important cancellation provisions. If more than 70 eligible survi- vors join the class, Martin has the right to cancel the settlement agreement. If a single eligible class member opts out, the diocese can pull the plug. A critical element of selling the deal to class members was the apparent goodwill of Lahey towards survivors, and his vows to repair and never repeat what he called the church's "reprehensible misconduct" towards chil- dren. "Sexual abuse, indeed any abuse, is wrong," he said when the settlement was announced. "I want to assure you that for some time our diocese, like others through- out Canada, and like other organizations, have been proactively taking steps to protect children and youth." Said Martin at the same announcement: "I accept Bishop Lahey's apology, and I pray that our diocese con- tinue its commitment to this peaceful resolution." "appeared to be genuine," says McKiggan. "I believed that this was the man who truly wanted to change the way the church deals with these types of allegations. That W HATEVER good faith existed at the time dis- appeared once Lahey was charged with child pornography offences. Back in August Lahey may still be the case, but because of his criminal charges, it's hard to say." Lahey's fall from grace was too much for one poten- tial class member. Philip Latimer, a 47-year-old unem- ployed welder from Cape Breton, who claims he was molested as a child by the deceased priest Hugh Vincent MacDonald, was considering signing on to the settle- ment, but news of Lahey's alleged crimes convinced him to have no part of it. A week after the news broke about Lahey's charges, McKiggan was overseas, attending the International Bar Association conference in Madrid, when Latimer appeared at a high-profile news conference in Halifax, attacking what he called a dirty deal that "throws money at victims" in the hope they'll go away. Sitting beside Latimer was his newly hired lawyer Paul Ledroit, who is experienced in sexual abuse claims, of the firm Ledroit Beckett in London, Ont. Ledroit was not only friends with fellow London lawyer Raikes, McKiggan's co-counsel on the class action, he also knew McKiggan fairly well; the two had talked professionally in the past about how best to pursue childhood abuse claims. McKiggan also says Robert Talach, a partner at Ledroit Beckett, contacted him after the class action was certified to offer his congratulations. "He called and said, 'Congratulations on slaying the dragon. Good job.'" No matter. Since October, Ledroit has pursued a highly public campaign to discredit the class action settlement, and invite potential class members to file individual lawsuits instead. He argues that the class settlement, with its confidential, out-of-court validation process, not only shields the church from the public details of its past abuse, but fails to allow victims the right of full disclosure, and the chance to cross-examine, at trial or in discovery, a full range of church officials. More importantly, he says the tight deadlines created by the settlement impose an artificial limitation period on sexual abuse victims, some of whom, because of the www. C ANADIAN Law ye rmag.com JANU AR Y 2010 31