Lawyers for a man who was sexually abused by a now-retired Christian Brother have accused the order of pursuing what they called a "despicable agenda" to get rid of his civil case cheaply and discourage others from taking similar legal actions against the order.
Paul Hendrick, who was principal of the CBS school on Westland Row, was jailed for three-and-half-years earlier this month for the repeated sexual abuse of one of his students, Kenneth Grace, when he was a pupil.
Mr Grace told the Circuit Criminal Court that Hendrick was a monster who had destroyed his childhood. He said he was sexually and mentally abused by Hendrick over four years.
It began in May 1980 with wrestling matches in the school boiler room and progressed to Hendrick whipping Mr Grace or telling Mr Grace to whip him while Hendrick wore a leather thong.
Other incidents of abuse took place during the school holidays near a farm in Waterford owned by the brothers.
Mr Grace began a legal action for damages against the Christian brothers in 2019.
His lawyers told the High Court today that this action was no further on, four years later, because of the way the Christian Brothers had chosen to deal with the case.
Senior Counsel John Gordon accused the Christian Brothers of playing "ducks and drakes with the legal system".
He said they had refused to nominate the current provincial leader of the order or the previous provincial leader to represent the order in the proceedings.
Instead, they had forced Mr Grace to sue all the individual Christian Brothers who were members of the order at the time he was abused.
Mr Gordon said they were only given the names of those members after they got a High Court order in 2021.
He told the court the only possible purpose of the strategy was to place Mr Grace at a disadvantage in any dealings with the Christian Brothers.
He said they were trying to force Mr Grace into mediation to get rid of his case as cheaply as possible and to discourage others from pursuing the Christian Brothers because it was so "troublesome".
He described it as a "horrible, distasteful, despicable" agenda.
The case was before the court today as the lawyer representing the previous provincial leader Brother Edmund Garvey and the current leader, Brother David Gibson, in their personal capacities, sought an order compelling both sides to enter into mediation.
Mr Grace and his legal team have so far refused to enter settlement talks as they say Brother Garvey and Brother Gibson are represented as individuals only and not as representatives of the order.
Mr Gordon said one of the things Mr Grace would like to receive is an apology, not just from Hendrick, but from the order.
Yet, he said, he was stuck in a situation where no one represented the order.
"There is no one to apologise to Kenneth Grace," Mr Gordon said. "And that is a shocking state of affairs in 2023."
Mr Gordon also accused the order of being actively involved in divesting itself of assets. The court was told there was a "systematic effort" by the order to divest themselves of assets.
Mr Gordon said the only outcome of this would be to mean that those with claims against the order were left with less to compensate them.
This claim was strongly denied by the barrister representing Brother Garvey and Brother Gibson. Barrister Karl Finnegan said this was not the case at all in relation to the defendants he represented. But he said there was no evidence at all of any attempts by the order to shield assets.
Mr Finnegan said his clients were anxious to go to mediation and their intention was to settle the proceedings. He said there was absolutely no attempt or intention to hide assets from Mr Grace.
Mr Finnegan said the court should ask why Mr Grace's legal team were opposing mediation. He said they seemed to want to litigate all the issues in court instead of going into settlement talks.
At the start of today's proceedings, the names of 61 Christian Brothers against whom Mr Grace has taken action were called by the court registrar and there was no appearance by any of them.
Mr Grace has now been granted judgment in default of appearance against 91 members of the congregation at the time of his abuse, who have not appeared in court.
A further nine members of the Christian Brothers live outside Ireland and applications against them have not yet been brought, while another 14 are now deceased.
Barrister Andrew Nugent said there were three Irish brothers who had not yet been served, as well as the three brothers who are represented in the case, Brother Garvey, Brother Gibson and Hendrick.
The court heard Mr Finnegan’s clients have not yet filed a defence to Mr Grace’s claims and it is not yet clear if they will argue that the statute of limitations applies and that Mr Grace is out of time to take his action.
Mr Justice Tony O'Connor refused the application to compel both sides to enter mediation. He said in the circumstances of the case he was not satisfied mediation would assist in reaching a settlement.
The judge said the antagonism between the parties seen in correspondence between them had seeped through to this application, although he was not assigning blame for that antagonism at this point.
The judge awarded the costs of the application to Mr Grace. The case will be back before the court in October.
