A law firm involved with a class action on behalf of former Ashley Youth Detention Centre inmates is encouraged by the state government's early actions.
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The class action is seeking damages for four plaintiffs and more than 100 other former inmates for alleged serious assaults at the centre.
The plaintiffs allege there was systemic negligence at the centre between 1961 and at least December 2019.
There have been many allegations of sexual and other assaults of detainees at the centre.
Specialist institutional abuse practice Angela Sdrinis Legal on Friday said it had been served with the state government's defence in response to the plaintiffs' statement of claims that was filed in the Supreme Court earlier in the year.
The firm said the government's defence was helpful, although it had not conceded liability as such.
It said it was helpful in terms of:
- The provision of details, such as precise dates of confinement, that might otherwise have cost time and money to obtain through the discovery process;
- acceptance the state was "vicariously liable" for the acts of its servants; and
- conceding detainees were often vulnerable and at high risk of coming from difficult environments, that people managing Ashley knew that and that there was a material risk and it was reasonably foreseeable that abuse of those detainees could result in their suffering physical and psychological injuries.
Angela Sdrinis Legal said those matters would help the plaintiffs and the state to narrow the issues that needed judicial decisions to those that were truly important, "such as the scope of the duty of care owed by the state to the plaintiffs, whether the duty was breached and how much, if any, compensation should be paid to the victims".
"To date, the cooperation between the parties has been positive."
The firm said it expected to receive the first tranche of relevant government documents in early January.
"At this stage we initially expect to receive about 1000 documents," it said.
"These documents will need to be perused, tabbed and identified in a manner which will allow for easy cross referencing and retrieval.
"There will be more documentation exchanged as the E-discovery process progresses."
It said it had employed extra staff for what was likely to be a vast task.
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Sean Ford
The Advocate Newspaper, Tasmania. Business, economics, politics, crime.
The Advocate Newspaper, Tasmania. Business, economics, politics, crime.
