OHL, CHL and four unnamed Spitfires players face $3.75M lawsuit over alleged 1984 sexual assault

Content advisory: This article includes allegations of sexual assault.

A woman referred to as “Jane Doe” in court documents has filed a $3.75 million lawsuit alleging she was sexually assaulted by four unnamed former Windsor Spitfires players at a house party in the spring of 1984.

The lawsuit, which names as defendants four “John Does,” the Ontario Hockey League, and the Canadian Hockey League, was filed on Tuesday in Ontario Superior Court in Windsor.

The Spitfires did not respond to a request for comment. OHL spokesman Josh Sweetland, on behalf of the OHL and CHL, declined to comment, saying the league has not been served with the lawsuit.

The “Jane Doe” in the Windsor case is represented by London lawyer Rob Talach, the same attorney who represented E.M., a woman who alleged in an April 2022 lawsuit that she was sexually assaulted by eight Canadian Hockey League players, including members of Canada’s gold medal-winning 2017-18 World Junior team. That lawsuit was settled weeks after it was filed and eventually resulted in criminal charges against five players.

Talach wrote to TSN in an email Wednesday that he disagrees with critics who might say survivors should be discounted if they remain silent about their case for years.

“Delayed disclosure by victims of sexual abuse is as natural as bleeding when cut,” Talach wrote. “It is how the body works… Have we not been educated enough over the past few decades to understand that delayed disclosure is the norm for victims of sexual trauma? A gang rape is a sexual trauma.”

“Jane Doe” said in an interview with TSN on Thursday that she buried her trauma for decades before finally telling one of her four children and then her husband seven or eight years ago.

“The trauma gets buried, put on a back burner, put in a suitcase,” she said. “There are other things more pressing, right? A lot of women do this. Everything is more important than them… I know that there are so many people out there who haven't reported their sexual assaults. So, if I can be their voice and if I can help be a part of a change, I’m glad to do that.”

“Jane Doe” said one of her attackers went on to coach in junior hockey.

“I could have not reported and said, ‘Well, I'm just going to have to get some therapy and deal with it on my own,’” she said. “But I feel that these people need to be held accountable. And it's not, it's not just the players, right? It's the whole system. Something needs to change.”

“Jane Doe” said she has been going to therapy several years ago after she began having flashbacks of her alleged assault.

“The disruption those have caused you can't imagine,” she said. “I can't even describe it, except to say I cannot function sexually, so it's caused a huge problem in our marriage.”

“Jane Doe” wrote in the lawsuit that she was born in 1965 and that in the spring of 1984, "John Doe 1" and other members of the Spitfires held an end-of-season party at his billet home in Tecumseh, Ont. She wrote that she drove to the home and that, while she did not consume much, if any, alcohol or use any recreational drugs, she has no memory of the events that took place at the party.

“Jane Doe” wrote that she awoke in a bedroom of the house in the early morning hours.

“She was in a bed and unable to move,” the lawsuit said. “Her clothing had been removed. One of the John Doe defendants was on top of her, penetrating her vagina with his penis. The remaining John Doe defendants then took turns engaging in vaginal penetration of the plaintiff.”

According to the lawsuit, one additional player from the Spitfires, identified as "John Doe 5," was present throughout the assault but did not sexually assault “Jane Doe” while she was conscious.

“The plaintiff has no knowledge of whether 'John Doe 5' sexually assaulted her prior to her regaining consciousness,” the lawsuit said. “The plaintiff’s only recollection is of 'John Doe 5' standing in the corner of the room in an emotional state and crying throughout the remainder of the assaults.”

“Jane Doe” told TSN that she contacted “John Doe 5” in April 2024 and confronted him about the alleged sexual assault.

“I’m a pretty good detective and was able to find the guy,” she said. “He didn’t deny this had happened. He just said he had had a concussion in the past 10 years and his memory was bad and he didn’t remember me or remember this happening.”

The John Doe defendants had complete control over “Jane Doe” and had isolated her from others, the lawsuit said, adding that she would have been unable to provide consent because of her level of intoxication.

“Jane Doe” wrote that the players’ conduct amounted to conspiracy because they gave her drugs or other substances without her consent to render her unconscious and isolated her from others at the party.

The lawsuit says the OHL was negligent because it ignored and failed to reasonably address institutionalized and systemic abuse within its organization, discouraged complaints of sexual assault by its employees, coaches, and players, and condoned a culture and environment that glorified the degradation and sexual exploitation of young women.

The lawsuit says “Jane Doe” has suffered “physical, mental, psychological and emotional stress, shock and suffering which will continue forever” because of the alleged assault and “has been required to undergo medical treatment and psychological counselling and will continue to require [the] same indefinitely throughout her lifetime.”

Daphne Gilbert, a law professor at the University of Ottawa who teaches courses on sexual assault law, said it isn’t unusual for a sexual assault survivor to come forward with their story many years after the fact.

“It’s common for people to bury traumatic incidents for many years,” Gilbert told TSN in an interview. “A sexual assault could be a woman’s first sexual encounter, and she may not have people close to her who she can talk to.

“When it comes to group sexual assaults, these are the most stigmatized. With cases like this, what surprises me the most is that women still come forward and are willing to trust the system when it fails them so often.”

Gilbert said she’s interviewed numerous sexual assault survivors who kept silent about their attacks for many years before going public.

“Women have told me they have come forward finally because they have a daughter or a granddaughter and don’t want her to go through what they did,” Gilbert said. “In some cases, there’s a sense of paying it forward to future generations, and sometimes they can finally do that after many years of therapy.”