Saint John hopes Supreme Court will stop class action by Kenneth Estabrooks's victims

The City of Saint John is turning to the Supreme Court of Canada in an attempt to block a class action lawsuit on behalf of adults who say they were sexually abused as minors by the late police officer Kenneth Estabrooks.

The class action suit was launched by Robert Hayes and other victims and has been certified by New Brunswick's Court of Queen's Bench.

Saint John challenged that certification in the province's Court of Appeal and lost. The city is now asking the Supreme Court for leave to appeal that decision. 

• Saint John loses bid to block class action over alleged abuse by Kenneth Estabrooks 
• Saint John tries again to block lawsuit by abuse victims of former police officer 
• Judge OKs class action lawsuit against Saint John

City councillors voted unanimously on Monday night to seek leave to appeal the certification. 

"From a pure legal perspective the advice has been that that's the right move to make from a legal perspective and council has agreed with that," Saint John Mayor Don Darling said Monday. 

Alleged abuse

In 2017, the city launched an appeal on four legal issues: duty of care, vicarious liability, punitive damages and fiduciary duty. The only one of those that didn't stand in the August decision was the appeal on the breach of fiduciary duty. 

Estabrooks was a city police officer between 1953 and 1975, when he was fired after admissions to superiors he had sexually abused at least two boys. 

After that, he was transferred to the city works department and retired from that in 1983.

In 2013, a private investigator hired by the city said that as many as 263 youths may have been sexually abused by Estabrooks over three decades.

In 1999 Estabrooks was convicted of four charges of indecent assault and sentenced to six years in prison. He died in 2005.