The Quebec Superior Court has authorized a class action lawsuit against more than a dozen members of the Catholic order Brothers of Charity order for alleged sexual assaults committed over the past eight decades.

The Arsenault Dufresne Wee law firm is representing the complainants and argued the case in a Montreal courthouse on Dec. 12. The case is centred around assaults allegedly committed between 1940 and the present.

“The Brothers of Charity had contested this first step,” a news release from the law firm reads.

An heir of an applicant listed as A.B. is representing all the victims who were allegedly assaulted by either members of the clergy or lay persons connected to the religious order.

The order established itself in Quebec’s education system in 1873 and founded several schools in the province, including Mont-Siant-Bernard College in Sorel, Mont-Saint-Antoine in Montreal and College Saint-Bernard in Drummondville.

The law firm…