Nun crotch-grabbing case moves to top court

An Indigenous man who was denied compensation on the basis that a nun had no sexual intent when she grabbed his genitals takes his case to Canada’s top court this week amid a tense power struggle between a judge overseeing implementation of the Indian residential school class-action settlement and the head of the process that awards payouts to victims.

The man, identified only as J.W., was a residential school student in Manitoba as a boy. In a claim accepted as factual, he said he was in line for a shower when a nun grabbed and squeezed his genitals, causing him distress. J.W. sought compensation under the independent assessment process set up as part of a class-action settlement over the schools.

An adjudicator turned him down because he had failed to prove the nun had a “sexual purpose.” J.W. argued he shouldn’t have needed to prove her intent but his attempts at redress through the assessment review process failed.

J.W. turned to the judge of the Court of Queen’s Bench supervising the class-action settlement in Manitoba, who decided the original decision was unreasonable and the reviews overseen by the chief adjudicator had failed to fix the problem. The judge ordered a new compensation hearing.

However, the Government of Canada successfully appealed to the Manitoba Court of Appeal by arguing the judges supervising the settlement have almost no authority to review the compensation decisions.