A class-action lawsuit against the City of Saint John may be nearing its end.
The suit relates to the sexual abuse committed by Kenneth Estabrooks while he was a city police officer.
In September 2023, New Brunswick’s Court of Appeal held the City of Saint John was liable for Estabrooks’ actions.
“It’s been a long road,” said Elie Waitzer, an associate lawyer with Koskie Minsky LLP, one of the firms representing class members.
“But what the Court of Appeal decision means is that we’re now very close to then end of the case and there’s going to be compensation available soon,” he said.
Waitzer said the compensation will come either through a court-ordered claims process or a settlement negotiated by the parties.
“That’s what the parties have been spending the past few months in discussions about, is the particulars of that compensation process.”
Waitzer said it’s been a long time coming for survivors of Estabrooks’ abuse.
“But we are extremely glad to be close to achieving access to justice for them,” he said. “We’re hopeful that the compensation process that gets put in place … helps survivors move forward with their lives as well as the broader Saint John community.”
Waitzer said the number of eligible class members likely won’t be known until the compensation process opens.
“Another wrinkle is when the allegations are about sexual abuse, often we see a lot of people don’t come forward or are hesitant to come forward,” he said.
The next scheduled court date for the lawsuit is Dec. 17 in Court of King’s Bench. Waitzer said the hope is a settlement will be reached by then and the parties can go to court and present tentative details of what that will look like.
Claims date back to the 1950s
The suit was originally filed by Robert Hayes in 2013 and claimed Estabrooks used his position as a police officer to sexually abuse a number of people between 1953 and 1975. It’s alleged he was transferred to the city’s works department when incidents came to light and continued to sexually abuse people there until his retirement in 1983.
Private investigators hired by the city found 263 people, mostly boys, may have been abused.
In 1999, Estabrooks was convicted on four counts of indecent assault. He died in jail in 2005 while serving a six-year sentence.
The City of Saint John was found “vicariously liable” for Estabrooks’ actions in 2023. Vicarious liability means a person or organization can be held responsible for the actions of another.
