(AUSTRALIA)
The Catholic Weekly [Archdiocese of Sydney NSW, Australia]
February 17, 2026
By Michael Cook
In a landmark decision handed down on 11 February, the High Court of Australia has expanded the scope of the Catholic Church’s liability in sexual abuse cases.
When he was 13 years old, a man known as “AA” was abused by an assistant priest of the diocese of Maitland-Newcastle, Fr Ronald Pickin, in 1969. Fr Pickin died in 2015 and was never charged with any offences, although other boys also complained about him later on. He never had an opportunity to respond to the allegations.
AA won his case for compensation in the NSW Supreme Court, but he lost in the Court of Appeal. The justices contended that AA’s account of the abuse did not reach the requisite standard of proof, that the risk of harm was not foreseeable by the diocese, and that the diocese could not be held liable for a breach of a “non-delegable” duty of care if the delegate committed intentional criminal acts.
However, the High Court overruled the Court of Appeal. It accepted the reality of AA’s abuse. More significantly, it changed the legal standard for proving liability in cases like these.
The High Court’s argument makes distinctions which might be confusing to non-lawyers. In short, it declared that institutions have a duty of care to people with “special dependence or vulnerability,” like children in schools and parishes or patients in hospitals and homes.
Furthermore, the court contended the diocese should have foreseen the possibility that Fr Pickin, or any priest, could have harmed the children in his care. It could not be excused even if there was no reason to suspect Fr Pickin in particular may have had a tendency to abuse children.
In the words of Justice Gordon, “where the non-delegable duty is to ensure reasonable care for the safety of a child, the duty-holder does not escape liability when the delegate fails to take reasonable care of the child by an intentional act in circumstances where the delegate should have foreseen the likelihood of injury to the child.”
The Maitland-Newcastle diocese has said that it is still studying the complex judgment, but that it was pleased AA’s case had reached a resolution.
“The past is with us today,” it said in a statement. “The Diocese continues to acknowledge the shameful aspects of its history where children and vulnerable adults suffered abuse, and some of its leaders failed to protect them from harm. The pain and damage caused is current each day for some survivors and their families.”
Legal firms immediately recognised that AA v The Trustees of the Roman Catholic Church for the Diocese of Maitland Newcastle [2026] has opened up a “new frontier for institutional liability”.
“Abuse survivors have long argued that churches should be held responsible for the abuse perpetrated by members of the clergy under their watch. Today, that principle is finally enshrined in Australia law,” commented John Rule, of Maurice Blackburn.
“This High Court ruling will have a significant impact on survivor claims across Australia. It will ensure abuse survivors can pursue their legal options through the courts without fear of the church saying it can’t be responsible for the crimes of its priests.”
In a 12 February statement Colin Biggers & Paisley said: “Overall, the High Court’s decision in AA represents a major recalibration of institutional responsibility for child abuse.”
“Institutions are now judged less by what they knew and more by the relationships of authority and trust they created.”
Legal authorities consulted by The Catholic Weekly forecast that the judgment will put fresh wind in the sails of lawyers and victim advocates. NSW law allows settlements to be set aside if it is “just and equitable” to do so.
So, there is every possibility that old settlements will be reopened to secure more compensation under the new criteria. The High Court may have opened the floodgates to both new claims and re-opened claims.
And when a claimant is able to prove that the abuse did take place, the church – and other institutions, of course – will find it difficult to avoid liability.
Might this have unforeseen consequences in settings like schools or nursing homes, The Catholic Weekly asked Professor Keith Thompson, of the University of Notre Dame Law School.
“The High Court went to some trouble to explain that this non-delegable duty doctrine already applied to schools because schools generally assume responsibility to care for vulnerable people,” he said.
“And yes, lawyers might consider running cases against the operators of nursing homes because they are full of vulnerable people, but I doubt they will take such cases very far because limited life expectancy means that the damages that might be awarded in these cases would be small.”
But Prof Thompson predicted that the decision could have an impact on the cost of care. “Institutions that care for vulnerable people will want to make sure that no vulnerable person is ever alone with one of their staff members if they have not already made that change. That will probably significantly increase caring costs.”
Paradoxically, however, the payout in successful cases could be less than under the former legal regime. Under common law, liability for “vicarious liability” was effectively unlimited; under NSW’s Civil Liability Act 2002, though, liability is capped. The High Court, for instance, halved AA’s compensation to $335,960.