The High Court has found the Catholic Church liable for the harm caused to a 13-year-old boy who suffered abuse at the hands of a paedophile priest in the late 1960s. Source: ABC News.
The case has broken new ground in the fight for compensation by victims, relying on an argument about non-delegable duties.
The man at the centre of the case maintained that Fr Ronald Pickin had committed the abuse in the presbytery of St Patrick’s Catholic Church at Wallsend, in the diocese of Maitland-Newcastle.
The man won his first case when a judge found the Church was vicariously liable for the damage done to him. The court awarded him $636,840.
The judge accepted the assaults had happened, despite the inconsistencies with the evidence.
But the finding was undermined by a High Court ruling that the Church was not vicariously liable for the actions of priests, because they were not strictly employees.
The body representing the Church, the Trustees of the Roman Catholic Church for the Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle, overturned the ruling on appeal.
In the High Court, the man’s lawyers argued the Church did have what is called a non-delegable duty to the children abused by clergy, even in circumstances when they were not aware there was a danger to children.
A non-delegable duty is used to justify the imposition of liability on one person for the negligence of another who is entrusted with a task.
The High Court agreed with the case.
“The duty of the diocese owed to [the man] in 1969 was a duty to a child to ensure that while the child was under the care, supervision or control of a priest of the diocese … purportedly performing a function of a priest of the diocese, reasonable care was taken to prevent reasonably foreseeable personal injury to the child,” the majority of the High Court found.
The court also said the diocese knew that by virtue of their immaturity, children were vulnerable to harm, and it alone had the practical capacity to supervise and control Fr Pickin’s performance.
The High Court awarded costs against the Church, but also halved the man’s payout to $335,920.
The case comes as the states and territories contemplate imposing vicarious liability on bodies like the churches and other groups, including Scouts, for the actions of paedophiles.
FULL STORY
High Court finds Catholic Church liable for priest’s sexual abuse but halves compensation (ABC News)
