The High Court ruled today that the Catholic Church can be held liable for the wrongdoings of its priests.
A judge in London announced his decision in a case which has been described as being “an issue of wide general importance in respect of claims against the Catholic Church”.
Although the point to be decided arose in a damages action over alleged sex abuse by a priest, it is understood that the decision will affect other types of claims made against the Church.
Mr Justice MacDuff gave a decision in favour of a 47-year-old woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, who claims she was sexually assaulted as a child by the late Fr Wilfred Baldwin, a priest of the Portsmouth Diocese, at a children’s home in Hampshire run by an order of nuns.
Giving his decision on a preliminary issue in her damages action the judge held that, in law, the Church “may be vicariously liable” for Father Baldwin’s alleged wrongdoings.
The trustees of the Portsmouth Roman Catholic Diocesan Trust - the defendant “standing in the shoes of the bishop” - were given leave to appeal.
Lord Faulks QC, for the defendants, said the Catholic Church “takes sexual abuse extremely seriously and it is entirely concerned to eradicate it”. The preliminary issue was on a point of law, he said, and emphasised that the Church was not seeking to abandon responsibility for sexual abuse.
During the hearing of the issue in July, the judge was told by Elizabeth-Anne Gumbel QC, representing the woman at the centre of the sex abuse claim, that the issue to be determined was whether the Church “can ever be vicariously liable in any situation for any tort at all”.
It was, she said, “a very wide issue indeed”.
Lawyers for the alleged victim said it was the first time a court has been asked to rule on whether the “relationship between a Catholic priest and his bishop is akin to an employment relationship”.
In his written ruling, Mr Justice MacDuff made clear that it had been agreed for the purposes of the litigation that the trustees of the Portmouth Roman Catholic Diocesan Trust “stood in the place of the Bishop of Portsmouth at the material time”.
He said: “The issue is whether the diocesan bishop should be held vicariously liable for the torts of the priest of his diocese.”
The claimant, who is seeking damages for personal injury, alleges she was sexually abused and raped by Father Baldwin, who died in 2006, when she was resident at the Firs Children’s Home in Waterlooville, Hampshire, between May 1970 and May 1972.
Mr Justice MacDuff said the issue “turns upon the relationship between Father Baldwin and the defendant”.
He said: “The defendant contends that Father Baldwin was not its employee, nor was the relationship ‘akin to employment’ and that vicarious liability cannot attach to the relationship which exists between them.”
He explained that vicarious liability “is a doctrine which makes an employer responsible for the tortious acts of an employee, acting within the scope, or course, of his employment”.
In the preliminary issue he only had to decide “whether the nature of the relationship (between Father Baldwin and the defendants) is one to which vicarious liability may - I emphasise may - attach”.
He had to determine whether vicarious liability may attach “notwithstanding that it was a relationship which differed in significant respects from a relationship of employer and employee”.
“This is not an issue which has previously been decided by the courts of England and Wales.”
The differences from a contract of employment were that there was “no real element of control or supervision, no wages, no formal contract and so on”.
He added: “But are those differences such that the defendants should not be made responsible for the tortious acts of the priest acting within the course of his ministry?
“There are, it seems to me, crucial features which should be recognised.
“Father Baldwin was appointed by and on behalf of the defendants.
“He was so appointed in order to do their work; to undertake the ministry on behalf of the defendants for the benefit of the church.
“He was given the full authority of the defendants to fulfil that role. He was provided with the premises, the pulpit and the clerical robes.
“He was directed into the community with that full authority and was given free rein to act as representative of the church.
“He had been trained and ordained for that purpose. He had immense power handed to him by the defendants.
“It was they who appointed him to the position of trust which (if the allegations be proved) he so abused.”
PA