The federal government and the General Synod of the Anglican Church of Canada are being taken to court for possible child abuse at a former Carcross residential school.

Documents filed with Yukon Supreme Court late last week claim the plaintiff was physically and psychologically abused while attending the Carcross Residential School, also called Chootla School, between 1959 to 1962.

The plaintiff, whose identity is protected by court order, also names a number of individual teachers in the civil suit.

The federal government and the Synod are being held responsible for the possible abuse on a number of different grounds, documents say.

As operators of the residential school, the government and the Synod were in charge of curriculum, activities and health and safety of the students. The rules and regulations by which principals and teaching staff had to abide, also fell to the government and Synod, the documents say.

The two bodies were also the owners of the school, and of the land on which it was built, court documents say.

As a result, they had an obligation to maintain the buildings and the land, and to ensure the site was safe, say court documents.

This includes making sure that people permitted on the property will not harm students, according to the claim.

Both the government and the Synod failed in these basic responsibilities, according to the plaintiff's claim, as a number of teachers at the school were systemically abusive.

Specifically, the suit claims they breached their fiduciary duty and their duty of care toward the plaintiff.

Breaching a fiduciary duty means the two groups failed in their responsibilities as guardian of the plaintiff, as he or she was a child while under their care at the school. Having been removed from his or her family, the student was a minor while enrolled at the Carcross Residential School.

Under the Indian Act, the government and the Synod became the trustees of the plaintiff's well-being, documents say.

According to the suit, the two groups did not take reasonable steps to ensure the former student's safety.

They should have known, say documents, that some people in positions of authority at the school were both physically and psychologically abusive of students and of the plaintiff specifically.

Documents say some teachers were spending long periods of time 'alone and unsupervised with the plaintiff especially near sleeping facilities.'

The federal government and the Synod also breached their duty of care to protect the child from the abusive situation, claim court documents.

They should have warned students and their families of the potential for abuse, documents say.

They were negligent in both their duty of care and in their responsibilities as guardians, the claim states, by improperly supervising some staff at the school and not fully investigating their backgrounds.

Specific types of abuse cited in the case include denying the necessities of life such as adequate food, water and medical treatment, unpaid child labour which 'amounts to slave labour,' physical abuse for the sake of coercion or sadistic purposes, prohibiting the plaintiff from speaking his or her maternal language, and forcing the former student to participate in humiliating behaviour such as undressing in public for the sake of an inspection or a beating.

Another key issue, according to the claim, is the policy of assimilation that the federal government applied with the Indian Act, and which the Anglican Church of Canada followed at the school.

As is the case with the vast majority of residential school cases across the country, documents say the Carcross school also implemented a systemic plan to eradicate the culture, language, traditions, spirituality and identity of the aboriginal students enrolled there.

Children were forcefully removed from their families to be taught Christian values and faith, documents say.

'The school was established to educate aboriginal children ... and to assimilate them into the majority white society by removing their language, culture, traditions, spirituality and identity,' say documents.

Physical and psychological abuse was used as a tool in assimilation, according to the claim.

As a result of the abuses, the plaintiff says he or she suffered as a child.

The federal government and the Synod are being asked to pay damages for lifelong problems such as post traumatic stress disorder, suicidal ideation, alcohol and drug abuse, difficulty in education and employment, and permanent hearing damage.

The plaintiff is also asking the court to order the defendants to pay for medical expenses, loss of income and restitution to family members who have provided assistance in the wake of the residential school experience.

This case is one in thousands that the federal government and various religious institutions have dealt with in Canada over the past few years.

Residential schools were run in Canada for more than 100 years from approximately 1874 until the last one closed its doors in Saskatchewan in 1996.

Most of the schools were run jointly between the federal government and the Catholic, Anglican, United and Presbyterian Churches, according to the Indian Residential Schools Resolution (IRSR) website.

More than 1,000 claims of childhood physical and sexual abuse have been settled, says the IRSR, a federal department created to resolve issues arising from residential schools.

Of the 86,000 former residential school students who are alive today, it is difficult to say how many experienced abuse, according to the IRSR.

While this case will be heard in the Supreme Court, plaintiffs can also choose to follow alternative dispute resolution which aims to resolve abuse cases outside of court.

The federal government has also issued a public apology for the legacy of suffering left by residential schools.

'The Government of Canada acknowledges the role it played in the development and administration of these schools,' the statement says. 'To those of you who suffered this tragedy at residential schools, we are deeply sorry.'

No court date has yet been set for the case.

The former Carcross Residential School was demolished in the 1980s after having sat abandoned for years.