A lawsuit has been filed against the federal and Yukon governments on behalf of former residents of a Whitehorse orphanage whose supervisor was convicted of sexually abusing children.

At least a dozen Yukoners are seeking class-action status in their demand for compensation for abuse they say they suffered at the Ridgeview Home for Children, which operated in Whitehorse's Porter Creek neighbourhood through the 1960s.

"It didn't have a school component to it, but it was like a hostel or a residence where status and non-status [Indian] children were placed," Whitehorse lawyer Laura Cabott, who filed the lawsuit earlier this month in the Yukon Supreme Court, told CBC News on Friday.

"It was run by individuals affiliated with the Baptist Church, and there were abuses that occurred there."

The abuses are documented in the court files of Gordon Donnelly, a former supervisor who pleaded guilty in 1989 of sexually abusing five former residents.

Donnelly, who would be 75 years old today, has not been heard from since he was convicted. He had been living in British Columbia around the time of his arrest and conviction.

Cabott said government authorities should have known that Donnelly had a history of physical and sexual abuse against children.

The civil lawsuit, Cabott said, is a last resort because the federal government has refused to list the Ridgeview home in its compensation program for former students of aboriginal residential schools.

"We have tried, made efforts over the years to have this home added to the government of Canada's list, and it hasn't been recognized," she said.

"So we've taken this route to file the lawsuit, not only on behalf of the individuals that are named in the lawsuit, but any child that went to [the] Ridgeview home can be part of the class action."

The federal and territorial governments have not responded to the court filing.