Ex-RWB students notified of class-action lawsuit

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This article was published 17/09/2018 (2576 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Thousands of former Royal Winnipeg Ballet School students are getting notices about a multimillion-dollar, class-action lawsuit against a former dance instructor who allegedly took intimate photos of students.

The ballet school is sending a legal notice — which was drafted by Toronto law firm Waddell Phillips Professional Corp. after receiving instruction by an Ontario judge — to students who were at the school from 1984 to 2015. The notice asks former students if they were photographed by Bruce Monk in a private setting during that time.

The notice says if they are a class member, there is nothing they need to do. If they don’t want to be part of the legal action, they have to opt out by sending a signed letter, fax or email to lawyers handling the lawsuit.

Lawyer Margaret Waddell said the ballet has the addresses of about 40 per cent of the dancers who passed through the school during those years and all are receiving copies of the notice.

“It is in the thousands,” Waddell said on Friday. “The professional division had just a few hundred per year, but this is also the recreational dancers, including the after-school and summer camps. There are thousands.”

Waddell said former students who get the legal notice aren’t necessarily part of the class-action suit.

“If you weren’t privately photographed by Mr. Monk, then you are not part of the class. You don’t have to opt out,” she said.

Waddell said so far, they have heard from 70 people who are potential class-action participants. They either came forward on their own or their names were put forward by others.

Waddell said people have until Nov. 20 to decide if they want to stay in the lawsuit.

Natasha Havrilenko, the RWB’s communications manager, said the RWB cannot comment on anything connected to the lawsuit.

“As a standard procedure of any class action, there is an opt-out notice period during which time we are ordered by the court to not communicate any information,” Havrilenko said.

Monk was a teacher, choreographer and photographer at the school for 28 years until the RWB let him go in 2015 after allegations against him surfaced.

The lead plaintiff for the lawsuit, Sarah Doucet, alleges Monk persuaded her to let him take semi-nude photos of her as a teenager. She later learned he had distributed them.

Doucet is suing for $50 million in damages on behalf of herself and other students. Another former student, who is not named in the lawsuit, is suing for $10 million. Unspecified special damages are being sought as well as $25 million in punitive and exemplary damages.

It’s similar to allegations contained in a separate lawsuit, which was filed in Manitoba Court of Queen’s Bench by a former dance student, and remains before the courts.

The woman, who is now in her 30s and has three children, is suing for $300,000 in general damages and $100,000 in punitive, aggravated and/or exemplary damages. She is also suing for unspecified special damages.

None of the allegations in either the Winnipeg case or the Ontario class-action lawsuit has been proven in court. Monk and the RWB have filed statements of defence denying the allegations.

In November 2016, Manitoba Justice announced that after an investigation, no criminal charges would be laid.

“The Crown recommended that charges not be laid because a conviction was unlikely,” a justice official said at the time.

“Complainants were made aware of this decision and supports were offered through the province’s victim services branch.”

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca