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A judge has ordered a religious order, the Clercs de St. Viateur du Canada, and the church-run Montreal Insitute for the Deaf to pay $30 million to a group of former students who were sexually assaulted by priests, making it the largest settlement for sexual assault in Quebec history.

At least 60 deaf students were assaulted by members of the religious community and lay people working at the school between 1940 and 1982. The school changed its name to the Institut Raymond-Dewar in 1984.

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The judgment brings to an end a long and painful process that began with the authorization of a class action suit in 2012.

Represented by Robert Kugler, of the firm Kugler Kandestin, which also secured a landmark decision last week when its client was awarded $8 million for a hockey injury, the plaintiffs will now apply to an adjudicator, former Appeal Court Justice André Forget, in private, and with a sign-language interpreter.

The plaintiffs include students who were as young as eight years old when they were repeatedly assaulted at the boys boarding school.

Twenty-eight religious staff and six lay people were named in the class action, of which only five or six are believed to still be alive.