The Canadian Experiment with the Civil Action for Sexual Battery

Abstract

There have been almost 30 reported Canadian civil incest decisions and about 15 more decisions involving other child sexual abuse. Interestingly, the plaintiff has prevailed in most. For potential plaintiffs, this sounds too good to be true. It is. Although the records are not as clear as one would like, it appears that more than half the claims followed criminal convictions, and fewer than half were defended in the subsequent civil suit. The author doubts that many plaintiffs recovered much if anything on their judgments or that they expected to do so when they began the action. The legal landscape will change significantly as more defended actions come to trial. It remains to be seen whether a contested civil incest action will prove to be in the clients best interest or whether the action will only be useful, if at all, in the relatively “easy” undefended cases.

Keywords: incest, Canadian, decisions, child, sexual abuse, plaintiff, criminal, civil, judgements, recovery, legal, law, actions, trial