Abuse Law Update: AA v Trustees of the Roman Catholic Church

In the matter of AA v Trustees of the Roman Catholic Church for the Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle [2024] NSWSC 1183, the plaintiff (AA, a pseudonym) commenced court proceedings seeking damages, including exemplary and aggravated damages, for personal injury which he claims he suffered after he was physically and sexually assaulted by a parish priest, Father Ronald Pickin, at St Patrick’s Catholic Church, Wallsend in 1969, when he was a teenager. He also seeks damages for resulting economic and other losses.

In 1969 AA was a student in 2nd form, now year 8, at Wallsend High School, where he attended the class in which Father Pickin that year first gave students instruction in the Catholic faith. There is no issue that on some Friday nights he invited AA and his friend Mr Perry, as well perhaps, on some occasions other boys, to the presbytery where Father Pickin lived alone. But in which school year this occurred was not agreed. It was also agreed that during those visits Father Pickin gave the boys beer and cigarettes and allowed them to play on an old poker machine which he had there and that there were no other adults ever present. AA claims that on some six of those occasions he became drunk to the point that he fell unconscious or blacked out in the bedroom where the poker machine was kept. When he came to, he found Father Pickin forcing him to perform oral sex. He does not claim that Mr Perry was with them in that room on any of those occasions, or that he knew about the assaults. He remembers Father Pickin telling him that Mr Perry was not there because he had sent him to the shops to buy cigarettes, or that he had gone home. Mr Perry denied ever leaving AA alone at the presbytery with Father Pickin. There is no suggestion that he ever witnessed any assault or that AA told him about the assaults, although his oral evidence was that he had tried to talk to Mr Perry, but he was not interested.

No evidence could be called from Father Pickin, who died some years ago, but evidence was called from Mr Perry and a number of other witnesses.

The claimed abuse was not admitted by the Diocese, which also denied that it had the claimed duty of care. It also does not admit any breach or the claimed damages. Its claimed vicarious liability for the abuse, if it occurred, was also denied, Father Pickin not being an employee and, on its case, it not having placed him in a position akin to employment, or in any position of power, control or authority over AA. In closing submissions, however, the Diocese’s position was that the abuse did not take place.

In relation to duty of care, the Court found at [224] as follows:

I am satisfied that the evidence I have discussed makes the conclusion that the Diocese owed AA a duty of care unavoidable. The duty claimed, given that he was a child in the care of a priest of the Diocese and entirely reliant on it to protect him from abuse by its priests, was to take reasonable care to avoid AA suffering foreseeable and not insignificant harm. The risk in issue being that he would be sexually abused by a priest such as Father Pickin.

In relation to vicarious liability, the Court found at [210] as follows:

Approaching the evidence in the way discussed in Prince Alfred College and Bird, I am satisfied that like the assistant priest considered in Bird, the Diocese did give Father Pickin a special role when it appointed him to the position of parish priest of AA’s parish. That role being of such a kind that it was vicariously liable for his assaults, notwithstanding that they unarguably involved criminal acts, even if it was then not expected that priests would have unsupervised children at the presbytery, or give them alcohol and cigarettes.

The Court found at [9] as follows:

…I have concluded that AA was sexually assaulted by Father Pickin; that the Diocese did owe him a duty of care which it breached; that it was vicariously liable for those assaults; and that while he is entitled to damages for the harm which he suffered as a result of the assaults, they cannot be assessed on the basis which he claimed.

The Court further ordered damages to the plaintiff for general and aggravated damages, exemplary damages, and past economic loss.

Ultimately, on 20 September 2024, the New South Wales Supreme Court ordered that judgement for the plaintiff, and that the parties are to confer and provide proposed final orders that give effect to the conclusions reached within 14 days of this judgment.

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