High Court rules paedophile priest not ‘employed’ by church
A victim of child sexual abuse was awarded $230,000 in court - but the Catholic Diocese involved has successfully overturned it.
Australia’s highest court has overturned a successful lawsuit brought by a victim of child sexual abuse after ruling a pedophile priest was not an “employee” of his Catholic Diocese.
The victim, DP, was awarded $230,000 in damages after the Victorian Supreme Court heard he was groomed and abused by Father Bryan Desmond Coffey.
During the case launched in 2020, DP claimed the Roman Catholic Diocese of Ballarat and its current Bishop, Paul Bird, was vicariously liable for the abuse he suffered in 1971.
In a landmark decision on Wednesday, the High Court of Australia set aside the judgment in DP’s favour, finding vicarious liability was “confined to employment relationships”.
“The priest was not an employee or ‘agent’ of the Diocese, and his actions were not done with the express or implied authorisation of the Diocese,” a statement released by the court said.
“Expanding the doctrine to accommodate relationships that are ‘akin to employment’ would produce uncertainty and indeterminacy.
“As the priest was not an employee, there could be no finding of vicarious liability on the part of the Diocese.”
The judgment followed an unsuccessful appeal lodged by the Diocese in the Victorian Court of Appeal last year.
“In a real and relevant sense, Coffey was the servant of the diocese, notwithstanding that he was not, in a strict legal sense, an employee of it,” the court of appeal ruled.
The Diocese, however, launched a last-ditch application to the High Court.
DP had alleged in court he was left with complex PTSD and psychological injuries due to the abuse committed by Father Coffey.
One of the offences alleged included the priest attending a social gathering at DP’s home before taking him to bed and assaulting him.
It was also alleged Father Coffey sexually assaulted DP inside a tent the priest had received for Christmas.
Father Coffey, who died in 2013, was convicted in court of several child sexual abuse charges against other children in 1999.
At the time of the assaults on DP, Father Coffey had been appointed by the Bishop of Ballarat to serve as the assistant parish priest at St Patrick’s Church in Port Fairy - near Warnambool on Victoria’s south-west coastline.
The High Court’s judgment states his relationship with the diocese was “governed by a strict set of normative rules” – Canon Law – that were “legally unenforceable”.
“The Bishop (and by him, the Diocese) exerted no direct control over Coffey’s hours of work, his day-to-day tasks or his manner of carrying them out,” the court ruled.
One of the judges, Justice Jaqueline Gleeson, wrote the relationship between Father Coffey and the Diocese “attracted vicarious liability”.
She found, however, the Diocese was not liable for the sexual assaults Father Coffey inflicted upon DP “because those torts occurred in circumstances where Coffey opportunistically took advantage of his role to commit them”.
More Coverage
“The torts were therefore not committed in the course of Coffey’s performance of his role as assistant parish priest,” she wrote.
“The fact that Coffey’s role placed him in a position of trust in the provision of pastoral care is insufficient to support a conclusion that the sexual assaults occurred in the course of Coffey’s role.”
The court allowed the Diocese’s appeal, set aside the previous court rulings, and ordered the proceedings be dismissed with costs.