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The law­suit against the Catholic Church, St Do­minic’s Chil­dren’s Home, and the State will face its first hur­dle to­day as the mat­ter goes be­fore Jus­tice Car­ol Gob­in to de­ter­mine whether the mat­ter is too old to pur­sue.

The law­suit was filed on Oc­to­ber 8. In it, five men are su­ing St Do­minic’s Chil­dren’s Home (al­so re­ferred to as the Bel­mont Or­phan­age), the Ro­man Catholic Arch­dio­cese in Port-of-Spain, the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, the Statu­to­ry Au­thor­i­ties Ser­vice Com­mis­sion, and a for­mer em­ploy­ee at the chil­dren’s home who was lat­er charged with bug­gery, at­tempt­ed bug­gery, and se­ri­ous in­de­cen­cy.

The fil­ing of the law­suit comes af­ter the men is­sued pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ters in 2022, seek­ing at the time some $2.5 mil­lion for six al­leged vic­tims. In re­sponse to the pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter, at­tor­ney Gre­go­ry Delzin, now a se­nior coun­sel, said the law­suit was filed out­side the le­gal lim­it as al­lowed un­der the Lim­i­ta­tion of Cer­tain Ac­tions Act.