海角社区官网

In his decision Monday, Chief Justice Michael H. Tulloch called the plaintiffs’ objectives admirable, but said the proposed case was of “an unprecedented scale and complexity.”

Tulloch upheld an earlier ruling by Ontario Superior Court Justice Paul Perell, who in February 2023 concluded the courts would face an “unmanageable” proceeding involving 78 defendants across 13 jurisdictions, hundreds of potential third-party claims and diverse allegations spanning nearly 50 years.

Perell’s 103-page ruling quoted from sworn statements by unidentified players describing what they experienced when some were as young as 15.

One player, identified only as FF, said he was sodomized with a hockey stick as part of a rookie initiation 鈥� an assault at least one other player said also happened to him.

“I have lived with the abuse I suffered,” the player said. “Coming out with my story has been extremely difficult but (I) am telling it because I do not want any other child to go through what I did.”

Perell wrote in his decision the evidence established that players were “tortured, forcibly confined, shaved, stripped, drugged, intoxicated, physically and sexually assaulted; raped, gang raped, forced to physically and sexually assault other teammates.”

He accepted the former players’ evidence and described the main plaintiffs as “genuine heroes,鈥� but the judge found they had not presented a workable plan for litigating the case as a class action.

On appeal, Tulloch wrote that because the plaintiffs did not suggest a narrower or more targeted class action at the certification stage, 鈥渢hey cannot now seek to fundamentally recast their case.鈥�

He added in the 35-page document that the ruling does not rule out the possibility of more limited class actions 鈥� focusing on individual teams, leagues or smaller groups 鈥� being certified in the future.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 22, 2025.