I. Introduction
This article will argue that a new approach is needed for dealing with claims for vicarious liability and non-delegable duties in the law of tort. It will submit that lessons can be learnt from a comparative study of UK and Australian law, notably by reflecting on the courts’ recent treatment of claims of institutional liability for child sexual abuse in Various Claimants v Catholic Child Welfare Society Footnote 1 and Armes v Nottinghamshire CC Footnote 2 (UK Supreme Court) and in Prince Alfred College v ADC Footnote 3 (High Court of Australia). In all three cases it was alleged that institutions should be vicariously liable for the abuse in question and that the current requirements for vicarious liability should be applied more flexibly to meet the claimants’ demands for compensation. Arguments based on non-delegable duties were either not pursued or rejected. In revising once again the rules of vicarious liability, the courts in both jurisdictions have highlighted the tension which exists in private law between vicarious liability and non-delegable duties and the question of their correct application in private law.
This paper will also consider the possibility of statutory intervention. Parallel to the activity of the courts dealing with claims of abuse in contexts varying from children's homes and schools to foster care, public enquiries in England and Wales and Australia, established to report on historic cases of child sexual abuse, are now reporting their findings. These include recommendations for changes to private law. In England and Wales, the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) has, since 2014, been examining allegations of past and ongoing failures of institutions to protect children in schools, residential homes, secure accommodation and local authority careFootnote 4; the intention is to make “substantial progress by 2020”.Footnote 5 The IICSA is actively examining the civil litigation experience of victims of abuse and analysing data from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority to understand what amounts are currently paid to victims of child sexual abuse. While unlikely to report before 2021, the IICSA is identifying problems arising from the civil litigation process in UK courts. The Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse (Royal Commission), established in 2013, has made greater progress. In December 2017, it published the result of its five year investigation into how institutions such as schools, churches, sports clubs and government organisations in Australia have responded to allegations and instances of child sexual abuse.Footnote 6 Its 17-volume Final Report covers a broad range of interrelated issues including how to understand the nature, cause and impact of child sexual abuse in institutional contexts, how to support institutions to be child safe, how to treat children with harmful sexual behaviours and how the state can promote the need for advocacy, support and therapeutic treatment services.Footnote 7 Significantly, both reports to date have highlighted the importance of risk management strategies which focus on preventing, identifying and mitigating risks to children.Footnote 8 The Final Report of the Royal Commission recommends the introduction of a national redress scheme which would make it easier for victims/survivors of child sexual abuse to obtain reparation for the abuse committed against them. Similarly, the IICSA's interim report of April 2018 recommends a redress scheme for surviving child migrants. The Commission's separate Redress and Civil Litigation Report Footnote 9 does, however, argue that any state-based redress scheme must be supplemented by changes to private law. The option chosen by the Royal Commission is the introduction of a statutory non-delegable duty, supported by a reversed burden of proof for abuse victims.Footnote 10
This article will critically assess how private law has engaged with historic child sexual abuse claims committed by individuals employed by or associated with the operations of institutions and the degree to which the approach adopted has destabilised core tort law principle. While the inquiries have raised the possibility of state-based redress schemes, neither system has suggested that they should replace private law provision. There seems no appetite, therefore, for a system based solely on social solidarity. The question, then, is how private law should respond. Intervention, as we will see, has focused primarily on institutional liability – institutions being the natural target for claims relating to historic abuse where the perpetrators are likely to have disappeared, passed away or, even if traceable, lack funds. Three options exist: institutional negligence, vicarious (strict) liability for the torts of others, and a non-delegable duty (statutory/common law) to protect victims against sexual abuse. It will be argued that the UK's approach, favouring the option of vicarious liability, has gone too far. This is particularly important given that the UK Supreme Court is now applying this approach, evolved to respond to cases of institutional child sexual abuse, to tort law generally including cases involving basic negligence and non-sexual intentional torts.Footnote 11 In contrast, the Australian approach has been more cautious. While not without its own faults, notably an overly restrictive notion of the employment relationship, it will be argued that its more considered incremental approach is capable of providing a basis for greater certainty and coherence in this area of law. Fundamentally, this paper will argue that the current legal position in both jurisdictions is unsatisfactory and change is needed. Claims of historic institutional child sexual abuse have challenged the ability of the law of tort to respond to social injustice. In reacting, however, it is important not to forget the need to provide litigants with a law of tort which is coherent, principled and just. In particular, this article will consider whether vicarious liability should, as the English Court of Appeal remarked in July 2018, remain “on the move”Footnote 12 or whether a more controlled, incremental approach is needed to respond to the extraordinary extension of this doctrine in UK law since 2001.
II. Why Is a Private Law Response Needed for Institutional Child Sexual Abuse?
Despite the existence of statutory redress schemes such as the UK Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme (CICS) and the Australian Redress Scheme for survivors of institutional child sexual abuse, claimants continue to bring claims in private law for compensation arising from sexual abuse. The limitations of the CICS are well known.Footnote 13 While claims may be made up to a capped amount of £500,000 for injuries resulting from a criminal act, time limits existFootnote 14 and other restrictions apply; for example, awards may be withheld or reduced because of the applicant's character.Footnote 15 A BBC investigation in 2015, based on a freedom of information request, found that compensation had been reduced for more than 400 sexual abuse victims in Britain who had subsequently committed criminal offences.Footnote 16 The Government's 2014 guide to the scheme also expressly advises that it is intended to be a matter of last resort: “Where the opportunity exists for you to pursue compensation elsewhere you should do so.”Footnote 17 The Australian Scheme, which opened in July 2018 and will run for 10 years (with an option to extend), is also limited in scope. While the Australian Government committed $33.4 million in the 2017–18 Budget to establish the Scheme,Footnote 18 in its original form it was confined to survivors of child sexual abuse in Commonwealth institutional settings who were sexually abused before 1 July 2018.Footnote 19 Other bodies could opt in and it was only after considerable deliberation that all states and territories, ultimately signed up to the scheme – a late signature being the Catholic Church.Footnote 20 Redress is capped (as is the norm in such schemes) with eligible survivors provided with redress in the form of a monetary payment of up to $150,000, with the opportunity to receive support through trauma-informed and culturally appropriate counselling.Footnote 21 Such sums have been criticised for being considerably less than that provided, for example, by the Irish Redress SchemeFootnote 22 which put a cap of €300,000 in place, which could be exceeded if the assessors felt this was appropriate.Footnote 23 The cost of the Commonwealth redress scheme has been nevertheless estimated at between $570 million and $770 million over 10 years.
The limits on such schemes (notably in Australia excluding future victims of abuse) signifies that victims in both jurisdictions will continue to turn to private law to seek compensation for the abuse they have suffered.Footnote 24 Indeed, Goudkamp and Plunkett have argued that public inquiries, in unearthing historic instances of abuse, render it more likely that such cases will come before the courts.Footnote 25 Civil litigation, despite its stresses and costs, does offer an alternative means to obtain compensation, assessed, of course, at the more advantageous tortious basis. It should also not be dismissed as simply a money game. In theory at least, a court hearing may provide claimants with a public forum in which the perpetrators of abuse and the institutions they view as indirectly responsible may be held to account. The mechanism of the civil trial may also provide an outlet for the anger and frustration of victims, particularly in the face of denials of liability by defendants,Footnote 26 and allow for a public dissection of the wrongful conduct.Footnote 27 While the realities of the litigation process often diminish the force of such arguments, notably the fact that most tort cases are settled before trial,Footnote 28 an award of compensation, even if based on a settlement, is likely to have significance to a victim of abuse beyond the monetary. As Case has observed:
a compensation award does more than provide financial recompense for the economic disadvantages which abuse and psychiatric injury have inflicted, it also performs a subset of functions; damages have symbolic force as, inter alia, an expression of the wrong done to the claimant and a vindication of the claimant's character.Footnote 29
For claimants suing in private law, institutional liability is most likely to provide the best source of compensation. Any action against the perpetrator of the abuse faces the hurdle of having to trace any abuser who has not been identified by the police for criminal prosecution. In many cases we know that the institution was sued because the abuser in question was dead or untraceable.Footnote 30 Further, abusers even if traced may lack sufficient means to compensate.Footnote 31 It is not, therefore, accidental that latent claims against abusers tend to be in the criminal courts rather than in the pursuit of a compensation claim the perpetrator is unlikely to be able to meet. Hall argues that given the cost of redress schemes, realistically they can only be seen as alternatives, not replacements, for legal actions.Footnote 32 The question, then, is how private law responds. As will be seen below, three options exist which will be examined in turn.
III. The Options: Fault, Vicarious Liability, Non-Delegable Duties
In view of the difficulties experienced by victims of child sexual abuse in bringing claims against the perpetrators of historic abuse outlined above, it is not surprising that both England and Wales and Australia have faced arguments of institutional liability based on fault, attributed fault (non-delegable duties) and strict liability (vicarious liability). The choices made in each jurisdiction towards these options give us an insight into private law legal development and the extent to which “difficult cases” of historic child sexual abuse have changed private law generally.
A. Institutional Fault
Institutions may be found to be primarily liable where they have negligently failed to prevent the abuse taking place. For example, where the institution knew or should have appreciated that the carer in question was incompetent or untrustworthy, the employer will liable unless special precautions were undertaken.Footnote 33 Hoyano and Keenan identify four main sources of institutional liability in negligence: negligence in employing and continuing to employ staff whom the institution knew or should have known were paedophiles; failing to take reasonable steps to prevent or stop physical and sexual assaults; failing to exercise reasonable supervision and direction of employees; and failing to investigate abuse following reports by the victim.Footnote 34 They argue that, in practice, it will be far easier to establish foreseeability of the risk of abuse as a generalised risk arising from the institutional culture than in relation to a specific employee.Footnote 35 A failure, then, to take reasonable steps to provide safeguards for vulnerable children or to train staff properly may be regarded as prima facie examples of institutional fault. Further, evidence of a continued practice of turning a blind eye to credible claims of sexual abuse (if proven) could establish a basis for an institutional negligence claim.Footnote 36 Morgan has argued that the advantage of such liability is that it calls systems and higher officials to account and may also play a forensic role in satisfying the victim's need for accountability.Footnote 37
The issue, however, is one of proving fault. Negligence requires the court to judge the conduct of the institution by the standards which prevailed at the time of the tort and not those applied today.Footnote 38 McLachlin C.J., for example, in abuse case Blackwater v Plint Footnote 39 commented that “by contemporary standards, the measures taken were clearly inadequate and the environment unsafe. But by the standards of the time, constructive knowledge of a foreseeable risk of sexual assault to the children was not established”. In that case, even though the children had made complaints to adults, the adults were not found to be negligent in failing to identify sexual abuse which would have been regarded as an almost unthinkable idea at the time.Footnote 40 A similar finding was reached in the recent decision of the High Court of Australia in Prince Alfred College v ADC. Footnote 41 While rumours had existed in relation to the housemaster, no concrete allegations had been made prior to the accusation in question. The immediate dismissal of the housemaster when allegations were made was deemed by the lower court to indicate that the school had been unaware of the abuse.Footnote 42 By the standards of 1962, the school was not at fault.
In the absence, then, of clear evidence (or a concession by the defendant) that a reasonable employer would have identified the paedophile as a potential abuser, liability will be difficult to establish. The Australian Royal Commission further identified that defendants, often at the instigation of their insurers, have responded to claims by hiring aggressive litigation lawyers making the plaintiffs fight every step of the way to establish proof of fault. This includes charitable and religious organisations such as the Catholic church.Footnote 43 Combined with the historic nature of such claims raising problems of lost evidence, faded memories, missing witnesses with records lost, mislaid or destroyedFootnote 44 it can be very difficult for claimants to establish liability based on fault.
Limitation is an associated problem. For very good reasons, including suppressed memories and the impact of childhood trauma, child sexual abuse claims are generally brought many years after the event. The Royal Commission noted that some victims take up to 22 years to speak publicly about the abuse they have suffered.Footnote 45 Bearing in mind the powerlessness of victims of institutional child sexual abuse, this is not surprising, but this obviously renders it more difficult for adult victims to bring claims. While the UK courts finally accepted that the s.33 Limitation Act 1980 discretion to disapply the limitation period for personal injury claims could apply to sexual abuseFootnote 46 (overturning earlier House of Lords authority in the process),Footnote 47 other jurisdictions (notably Australia) have not followed suit.Footnote 48 This does not mean that the discretion will always be exercised in the claimant's favour,Footnote 49 but at least the claimant is given the opportunity to argue their case. The Australian Royal Commission in its 2015 Redress and Civil Litigation Report Footnote 50 made it clear that the limitation periods in place at that time were inappropriate given the length of time that many survivors of child sexual abuse take to disclose their abuse. It recommended, therefore, that the limitation period for commencing civil litigation for personal injury related to child sexual abuse should be removed and that the removal should be retrospective in operation.Footnote 51 There has been a positive response to this recommendation. States and territories including QueenslandFootnote 52 and New South WalesFootnote 53 have removed (retrospectively) the limitation period entirely for victims of abuse (subject to a right of the court to stay proceedings where it would be unfair to the defendant to proceed).Footnote 54 Following the Commission's recommendation, therefore, change is being introduced is now being across the states and territories of Australia.
Yet, while the obstacle of limitation periods may, subject to the exercise of judicial discretion, be overcome, that of proving the fault of the institution on the balance of probabilities has not. It is on this basis that both jurisdictions have faced claims that further intervention is needed which is not dependent on proof of fault. This leaves two options: vicarious liability and non-delegable duties. The motivation to act is clear. In the words of Lord Hope: “Child sexual abuse is an ugly phenomenon. There is a heavy responsibility on our legal system to deal as fairly and justly as it can with the consequences.”Footnote 55 The devil lies, however, in the detail: on what basis, legally, can compensation in the absence of proof of fault be justified? When will the imposition of tortious liability in such circumstances be “fair and just”?
B. Vicarious Liability
The advantages of vicarious liability for claimants are self-evident. An institution (which will usually be insured and/or with means) will be held strictly liable for the torts of others. It is not without limitation, however. Under the traditional formulation stated by Sir John Salmond in 1907, which was adopted across the common law world, a master would only be held responsible for a wrongful act done by his servant in the course of his employment: “It is deemed to be so done if it is either (1) a wrongful act authorised by his master, or (2) a wrongful and unauthorised mode of doing some act authorised by the master.”Footnote 56 The UK House of Lords in Lister v Hesley Hall Ltd. Footnote 57 recognised immediately that such a formulation was ill-suited to claims for historic child sexual abuse. However, rather than rejecting such a claim,Footnote 58 the House accepted that sexual abuse could be regarded as “in the course of employment” of a carer where the torts of the abuser could be said to be so closely connected with his employment that it would be fair and just to hold the employers vicariously liable.Footnote 59 This was extended in turn by the Supreme Court in Mohamud v WM Morrison Supermarkets Plc. Footnote 60 where the UK Supreme Court provided a simplified version of the test. The courts should now focus on two questions to be approached broadlyFootnote 61:
(1) What functions or field of activities had been entrusted by the employer to the employee (or, in everyday language, what was the nature of the employee's job)? and
(2) Was there a sufficient connection between the position in which the employee is employed and his wrongful conduct which would make it “right” for the employer to be held liable as a matter of social justice?
The Supreme Court, perhaps surprisingly, was prepared to accept that a racist attack on a customer by a shop worker was sufficiently within the broad field of the activities entrusted to the employee to satisfy the “course of employment” test. Khan had been employed to attend to customers and respond to their enquiries. His violent assault was characterised simply as a foul mouthed and violent means of undertaking the “field of activities” assigned to him.
A more flexible approach to the doctrine of vicarious liability, which includes intentional torts within the field of activities of the perpetrator, has also been extended to the relationship which gives rise to vicarious liability. In the leading case of Various Claimants v Catholic Child Welfare Society (CCWS),Footnote 62 the UK Supreme Court undertook a fundamental reframing of vicarious liability to produce “a modern theory of vicarious liability”.Footnote 63 Vicarious liability would arise where a claimant could establish:
Stage one: a relationship between D1 and D2 capable of giving rise to vicarious liability; and
Stage two: a close connection that links the relationship between D1 and D2 and the act or omission of D1.
In CCWS, the Supreme Court approved earlier authority that the stage one relationship would extend beyond the traditional contract of employment to include relationships “akin to employment”.Footnote 64 This was taken further in later Supreme Court decisions to include a prisoner working in a prison kitchen (Cox v Ministry of Justice)Footnote 65 and foster parent caring for children on behalf of a local authority (Armes v Nottinghamshire CC).Footnote 66 The key issue is now whether the individual tortfeasor “carries on activities as an integral part of the business activities carried on by a defendant and for its benefit”.Footnote 67 English law thus acknowledges that the relationship giving rise to vicarious liability will not always comply with the traditional employer/employee relationship. It does mean, however, that the parameters of this relationship are far from fixed. There can no longer be said to be a “bright line” between employees and independent contractors for whom, traditionally, vicarious liability does not apply.Footnote 68
We can see that such developments render vicarious liability a very useful means by which victims of historic child sexual abuse can obtain compensation from (insured) institutional bodies without having to establish institutional fault. Obstacles such as establishing an “authorised act” or “employment relationship” (note, for example, that priests are not employees but office holders) are removed by the courts and thereby facilitate claims. Further, the Supreme Court in CCWS identified five key criteria which would justify any extension of liability:
(i) the employer is more likely to have the means to compensate the victim than the employee and can be expected to have insured against that liability;
(ii) the tort will have been committed as a result of activity being taken by the employee on behalf of the employer;
(iii) the employee's activity is likely to be part of the business activity of the employer;
(iv) the employer, by employing the employee to carry on the activity will have created the risk of the tort committed by the employee; and
(iv) the employee will, to a greater or lesser degree, have been under the control of the employee.Footnote 69
While the Court in Cox focussed on arguments based on enterprise liability, risk creation and delegation of task and Lord Toulson in Mohamud relied on “social justice”, Lord Reed in Armes argued that the weight to be attached to the CCWS criteria will vary according to the context.Footnote 70 In Armes itself, the majority highlighted, for example, that the absence or unavailability of insurance, or some other means of meeting a potential liability, and the significant degree of control which local authorities exercised over what foster parents did and how they did it, were relevant considerations in determining whether a local authority should be vicariously liable for abuse to children whom it had entrusted to foster carers.Footnote 71
What we see is that the basis for the modern theory of vicarious liability is primarily one of risk management with institutions internalising the risk of abuse which is inherent in hiring workers to care for vulnerable children. Such reasoning notably overlaps with the focus of the public inquiries discussed above. We may also observe that the CCWS criteria are now being applied beyond abuse claims to those involving negligence (Cox) and non-sexual intentional torts (Mohamud).Footnote 72 The implications for tort law more generally will be examined in Section IV below. For the moment, it is worth noting that UK law has developed a broad doctrine of vicarious liability, inspired by its fellow common law jurisdiction, Canada,Footnote 73 which places on the institution/enterprise responsibility for the risks associated with its activities. Deakin has noted that nevertheless English judges have been hesitant to adopt a purely “enterprise risk” approach.Footnote 74 This is true, but at the very least we can say that enterprise liability has been a driving force to extend the doctrine to cover the inherent risks of child sexual abuse.
Australia, however, highlights that such reasoning is not a given. In its leading cases of New South Wales v Lepore Footnote 75 and Prince Alfred College v ADC,Footnote 76 the High Court of Australia has demonstrated an overt reluctance to accept the case for enterprise liability reasoning and hence rejected the option to follow the approach of the UK and Canadian courts. The doctrine remains confined to employees.Footnote 77 While Australia has accepted, in common with England and Wales,Footnote 78 that the governing test for the employment relationship can no longer be simply that of control, but one of the “totality of the relationship”,Footnote 79 and, in Hollis v Vabu,Footnote 80 adopted a generous interpretation of this test to find that a motorcycle courier, who negligently injured Hollis while making a delivery, was an employee for whom the company (whose uniform he wore) was vicariously liable, nevertheless, the “akin to employment” test has not been followed. The similar idea of a “representative agent”, put forward in cases such as Hollis by McHugh J.Footnote 81 and which would have extended vicarious liability to some independent contractors, has been rejected by the High Court.Footnote 82 Indeed, Leeming J.A. in Day v The Ocean Beach Hotel Shellharbour Pty Ltd. noted that, until the High Court determines otherwise, the distinction between independent contractors and employees is a basic proposition central to the law relating to vicarious liability, which is “too deeply rooted to be pulled out”.Footnote 83 In Trustees of Roman Catholic Church v Ellis,Footnote 84 therefore, where the plaintiff had been sexually abused by an assistant priest while he had been an altar server at a parish of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney, the Court held that:
The law has proceeded by halting steps, identifying categories that do (e.g. employment) and do not (e.g. independent contractors) attract vicarious liability …. The relationship between an assistant parish priest and the “members” [of the church] as a whole is too slender and diffuse to establish agency in contract or vicarious liability in tort.Footnote 85
As Tan has commented, the “akin to employment” test has been instrumental in overcoming church reliance on the defence that abusive priests are office holders, not employees.Footnote 86 This “technical” defence continues to exist in Australia.
The High Court in Prince Alfred College v ADC Footnote 87 also refused to follow the Mohamud approach to course of employment. In its view, Khan's conduct was not relevantly connected with his employment.Footnote 88 While the case in Prince Alfred failed in any event under the Limitation of Actions Act 1936 (SA), the High Court nevertheless provided “seriously considered dicta”Footnote 89 to guide the lower courts. This was badly needed in the light of the failure of the majority in Lepore to agree on what should be the test for course of employment in relation to intentional torts.Footnote 90 The case itself involved the all too familiar case of institutional child sexual abuse. The plaintiff had been sexually abused by a master (Bain) in 1962 while a 12-year-old boarder at the defendant school. While the High Court refused to review its earlier decision in Lepore that the school's non-delegable duty of care to its pupils would not extend to intentional torts, it did examine the question whether, in the absence of limitation arguments, vicarious liability could have assisted the plaintiff. There was no problem in establishing a relationship of employment, so the sole issue before the court was whether the abuse was in the course of employment, bearing in mind that Bain was a housemaster with responsibilities over the dormitories in which the boys slept.
In rejecting the position of the UK and Canadian courts as being too reliant on general principle and policy choices, the High Court advised that courts should focus on the role given to the employee and the nature of his responsibilities to establish whether his employment was the “occasion” for the commission of the wrongful act:
in cases of this kind, the relevant approach is to consider any special role that the employer has assigned to the employee and the position in which the employee is thereby placed vis-à-vis the victim. In determining whether the apparent performance of such a role may be said to give the “occasion” for the wrongful act, particular features may be taken into account. They include authority, power, trust, control and the ability to achieve intimacy with the victim …. Where, in such circumstances, the employee takes advantage of his or her position with respect to the victim, that may suffice to determine that the wrongful act should be regarded as committed in the course or scope of employment and as such render the employer vicariously liable.Footnote 91
In specifying a test of “occasion”, the High Court went back to basics: its 1949 decision in Deatons v Flew Footnote 92 in which Dixon J. asked whether the intentional tort was one of those wrongful acts to which the ostensible performance of his employer's work gave occasion.Footnote 93 Reference is made to specific features of the parties’ relationship: authority, power, trust, control and the ability to achieve intimacy with the victim. This is a deliberately narrower formulation to that found in UK and Canadian law. It is fact-specific and requires the plaintiff to identify a situation of power-disparity and vulnerability between him and his abuser. There is an overt criticism of policy/enterprise risk driven expansion. For the High Court, it was more appropriate to follow:
the orthodox route of considering whether the approach taken in decided cases furnishes a solution to further cases as they arise. This has the advantage of consistency in what might, at some time in the future, develop into principle. And it has the advantage of being likely to identify factors which point toward liability and by that means provide explanation and guidance for future litigation.Footnote 94
While some commentators have queried whether any real difference can be found between the employment providing the “occasion” or “opportunity” for engaging in wrongdoing,Footnote 95 the Australian courts now have the ability to construct a test which does distinguish between the two in a meaningful way. What is important is that the High Court is trying to signal a change in approach. In rendering it easier for plaintiffs to rely on vicarious liability, it is seeking simultaneously to reduce the threat of over-extensive liability to which decisions like Mohamud give rise. It does not attempt a “new” theory of vicarious liability, but places emphasis on incremental development, focussing on the facts of each case.
We may ask why, in view of the different positions taken by other common law jurisdictions, such an approach was taken. Is it natural conservativism or something deeper? One possible answer derives from the emphasis that enterprise risk places on the relationship between insurance and vicarious liability. McLachlin J. in Bazley v Curry put it succinctly: “the employer is often in the best position to spread the losses through mechanisms like insurance and higher prices, thus minimising the dislocative effect of the tort in society”.Footnote 96 Australia, however, in the early 2000s experienced an insurance crisis, leading to a radical reappraisal of the role of tort law in society and the introduction of legislation limiting claims in tort in view of the fear that the award of damages for personal injury had become unaffordable and unsustainable as the principal source of compensation for those injured due to the fault of others.Footnote 97 In this light, Goudkamp and Plunkett suggest that any proposal for a generous approach to civil liability would be treated with extreme caution: “[the] clear message [is] that an expansive law of torts is politically unacceptable.”Footnote 98 Commentators have also noted in other fields that the High Court has in recent years been less inclined to embark on the exercise of reshaping fundamental doctrine where innovation is deemed unnecessary to decide the case at hand. On this basis, there is a “new sobriety” in the High Court.Footnote 99 We may identify, however, a further reason: the doctrinal coherence of the law of tort. In criticising Mohamud and adopting a cautious approach to the development of vicarious liability, the High Court is resisting the lure of compensation when it comes at the price of conceptual uncertainty. In its earlier decision of Sweeney, it had expressed concern at the absence of any clear or stable principle underpinning the development of the doctrine of vicarious liability.Footnote 100 There is a perceived need, therefore, for the courts to establish basic propositions from which the law could evolve. Here “sobriety” reflects a distinct form of legal reasoning. While the UK courts have been willing to intervene to assist claimants, finding a mechanism which enables them to do so, the High Court sees its role in developing legal principle, leaving overtly policy-based matters for the legislator.
For the Australian Royal Commission, such reasoning, while understandable, continues to offer insufficient protection for victims of historic child sexual abuse. Its solution was radical: a statutory custom-made non-delegable duty owed by institutions (defined broadly) to vulnerable parties over which they exercise some level of control. Such a proposal raises questions which many UK commentators are now asking: if vicarious liability is increasingly giving rise to fears of over-extensive liability, are non-delegable duties the answer? In the next section, I will examine the possibility of using non-delegable duties, created by statute and/or at common law, to respond to child sexual abuse claims.
C. Non-Delegable Duties (Statutory/Common Law)
Traditionally a non-delegable duty is one imposed directly on the defendant to ensure that reasonable care is taken.Footnote 101 It is primary, not vicarious, liability and holds the institution personally liable to victims injured due to the torts of any employees or independent contractors to whom it has delegated its duty of care.Footnote 102 As the UK Supreme Court commented in Armes:
The expression thus refers to a higher standard of care than the ordinary duty of care. Duties involving this higher standard of care are described as non-delegable because they cannot be discharged merely by the exercise of reasonable care in the selection of a third party to whom the function in question is delegated … [Such duties] are exceptional, and have to be kept within reasonable limits.Footnote 103
Until recently, non-delegable duties were seen almost as an historical anachronism, dealing with a limited category of claims arising in particular contexts. They would be found, thus, as an addendum to any discussion of vicarious liability or treated as confined to their specific context.Footnote 104 Australia has, however, led the way in developing the concept of the modern non-delegable duty, as acknowledged recently in the UK case of Woodland v Essex CC. Footnote 105 In Kondis v State Transport Authority,Footnote 106 Mason J. accepted that a non-delegable duty would arise:
because the person on whom it is imposed has undertaken the care, supervision or control of the person or property of another or is so placed in relation to that person or his property as to assume a particular responsibility for his or its safety, in circumstances where the person affected might reasonably expect that due care will be exercised.Footnote 107
The Kondis non-delegable duty is replicated to a certain extent by the UK Supreme Court in Woodland where Lord Sumption identified three critical characteristics:
(i) There is an antecedent relationship between the defendant and the claimant.
(ii) It imposes a positive or affirmative duty to protect a particular class of persons against a particular class of risks, and is not simply a duty to refrain from acting in a way that foreseeably causes injury.
(iii) The duty is by virtue of that relationship personal to the defendant.Footnote 108
On this basis, non-delegable duties have been found to arise in relation to institutions such as schoolsFootnote 109 and day care centresFootnote 110 and hospitals.Footnote 111
It is easy to see how the modern non-delegable duty might appeal in relation to institutional child sexual abuse cases. The institution will be dealing with vulnerable parties to whom it is offering some form of care or protection. As yet, however, neither legal system has extended the modern non-delegable duty to intentional torts. This would require treating a duty “to ensure that reasonable care is taken” to cover both deliberate and negligent harm. For Gleeson C.J. in Lepore this is a step too far. His concerns range from the potentially negative impact of such a duty on charitable and small organisations, which do not necessarily have the “deeper” pockets or insurance cover to meet such claims, to the absence of proof of deterrence when the sanctions imposed by criminal law have clearly not served to prevent the criminal actions of the tortfeasor.Footnote 112 The Court of Appeal in Armes (NA) v Nottinghamshire CC Footnote 113 also expressed concern at the burden such a duty might place on local authorities with a detrimental impact on the best interests of children in care. In Woodland itself, the duty was confined to negligence claims (although the issue of intentional torts did not arise).
Questions have also been raised to what extent reliance can legitimately be placed on non-delegable duties when they do not appear to be readily distinguishable from vicarious liability. For Lord Reed in Armes, such problems are exaggerated – there is a clear classificatory distinction between vicarious liability and non-delegable duties with the doctrines having different “incidents and rationales”.Footnote 114 However, if we consider how both doctrines function, then both operate to render an institution, which is not guilty of institutional negligence, liable in tort for wrongs committed by another. Fleming on this basis famously called non-delegable duties a “disguised form of vicarious liability”.Footnote 115 Glanville Williams was also critical of the lack of conceptual unity between the different non-delegable duties with cases decided “on no rational grounds, but … whether the judge is attracted by the language of non-delegable duty”.Footnote 116 Williams's argument has been countered to some extent by Lord Sumption's rationalisation in Woodland of a distinct category of non-delegable duty based on assumption of responsibility, but the Woodland non-delegable duty has not stopped academics such as Jonathan Morgan arguing that non-delegable duties remain functionally identical to vicarious liability and thus represent “nothing more than a sleight of hand to produce what is supposed to be impossible, namely vicarious liability for the torts of independent contractors”.Footnote 117 While more positive, Beuermann also sees definitional problems and seeks to identify a more coherent underlying theory which she entitles “conferred authority strict liability”.Footnote 118 The current functional overlap of vicarious liability and non-delegable duties, in her view, undermines any principled basis for strict liability for the wrongdoing of another in the law of tort. Deakin has also conceded recently that “many issues remain to be clarified”.Footnote 119 Non-delegable duties, at best, may be described as “under construction”.
Nevertheless, the Australian Royal Commission in 2015 saw the introduction of a statutory non-delegable duty as the best means to deal with the problem of compensating victims of child sexual abuse. The UK Supreme Court in Armes also refused to rule out the possibility of extending common law non-delegable duties to intentional torts. The merits of both these options will be examined below.
1. A statutory non-delegable duty
A legislative response, it might be argued, has a number of advantages. It can address definitional uncertainty by setting out clearly the nature and scope of a particular non-delegable duty and provide a targeted and measured response to a particular social problem. The Commission was also eager to highlight that its duty would be prospective. This would, it argued, avoid allegations of crushing liability, allowing institutions to plan for the future and to mould their work practices accordingly.Footnote 120 Its recommendation was for the enactment of a statutory non-delegable duty to be imposed on institutions which provide residential, school or day care facilities for children and on any religious organisation (or any other facility operated for profit) that provides services for children that involve the care, supervision or control of children for a period of time.Footnote 121 This would impose liability towards children harmed by both the deliberate criminal acts and negligent misconduct of its members and employees. In choosing selected institutions, the common connecting factor appears to be that these institutions represent places where children are at high risk of abuse.
The duty would not, however, extend to not-for-profit institutions and foster and kinship care. In relation to the former, the Commission did not wish to discourage volunteers from offering opportunities for children to engage in cultural, social and sporting activities.Footnote 122 The Commission took the view that in relation to foster and kinship arrangements, the degree of supervision or control needed to justify a non-delegable duty was absent.Footnote 123 Its second recommendation, however, was that regardless of any non-delegable duty, the onus of proof should be reversed in relation to institutions where children are abused by their members or employees. This would apply to a wider category of institutions, including foster and kinship arrangements: “this change will help to encourage higher standards of governance and risk mitigation in institutions that provide foster care and kinship care.”Footnote 124 It suggested that it would be easier for community-based voluntary institutions to rebut the presumption than a commercial institution. An institution would be personally liable for institutional child sexual abuse by persons associated with the institution unless the institution proves it took reasonable steps to prevent the abuse.Footnote 125
The aim therefore is to place the liability of institutions for abuse on a clear statutory basis. In the Commission's view, the HCA decision in Prince Alfred (discussed above) did not resolve difficulties arising from the status of the abuser (confined to employees) nor provide a straightforward test for courts to apply (the occasion test being dependent on consideration of the circumstances of the abuse and the precise role allocated to the abuser where evidence due to passage of time might be unavailable).Footnote 126 There was a need, therefore, for a more generous test which would not depend on proof that the institution was negligent, but would extend to deliberate criminal acts of persons associated with the institution.
The response to the recommendations in the 2015 Report has been revealing. In contrast to the willingness, discussed in Section IIIA, to introduce legislation to amend limitation periods, to date only Victoria has legislated in this field. In 2017,Footnote 127 it introduced legislation under which organisations that exercise care, supervision or authority over children would be required to take reasonable precautions to prevent child abuse and, if abuse occurred, there would be a presumption that the organisation failed in its duty of care unless it can prove that reasonable precautions were taken to prevent the abuse. Noticeably, however, this legislation did not extend to the statutory non-delegable duty. Commentators have questioned whether a reversed onus of proof, on its own, will offer sufficient support to victims of sexual abuse in the light of the evidential difficulties highlighted earlier in this paper in the context of fault-based claims.Footnote 128 This seems to leave much to the courts to determine just how easily institutions can rely on measures of good practice to rebut the presumption of liability. The Royal Commission in its 2017 Report noted that while the Queensland and New South Wales governments had released issues/consultation papers including the possibility of a non-delegable duty, other states and territories had yet to act.Footnote 129
Such hesitation does suggest that the option of a statutory non-delegable duty is not one a legislator takes lightly. Statutory change requires the political will to adopt the recommended measures (and the costs to state-run institutions which go with them). As noted above, to date, state and territory legislators across Australia have been less than keen to adopt this option. Should the legislators act, there appears at present to be a distinct possibility of an “implementation gap” whereby measures will vary from state to state, leaving victims to the happenstance of where the tort is deemed to take place.Footnote 130 There are, however, more profound difficulties raised by the statutory non-delegable duty option. Legislation will only provide greater clarity and guidance for both plaintiffs and defendant if its scope is clearly defined. Tofaris, for example, has remarked that “[a] crucial issue in cases of non-delegable duty is to identify with precision the duty whose performance is purportedly delegated”.Footnote 131 Commentators have been critical of the lack of exactitude in defining the statutory non-delegable duty and whether its scope would be acceptable to the public. For example, the Commission states that liability would extend to persons associated with the institution, including officers, office holders, employees, agents, volunteers, and priests.Footnote 132 This term is vague and potentially very broad. Just how “associated” must the abuser be to the institution for liability to arise? The potential for litigation on this point is self-evident. It might also be argued that the decision not to include not-for-profit institutions and foster and kinship care within the duty would hard to defend to the public given that Royal Commission CEO Philip Reed noted himself that, following over 4,000 private sessions conducted by Commissioners with survivors of child sexual abuse, “Over 40 per cent of individuals who attended private sessions said they were sexually abused as a child in out-of-home care, such as in former children's homes and in foster care”.Footnote 133 Excluding organisations such as the Scouts despite the Royal Commission raising concerns about the ability of organisations such as Scouts Australia to prevent and report child sexual abuse in a report published in 2014 highlights the difficulty of determining where to draw the line.Footnote 134 Such questions also indicate the political delicacy of determining the scope of such a duty and the reluctance of legislators to engage with difficult and controversial demarcation issues. Finally, there is the question how the statutory non-delegable duty will relate to the common law. As the Commission acknowledged, the law after Prince Alfred College is in a state of development. How should the common law respond to statutory intervention – revert to its earlier more limited doctrine of vicarious liability or evolve alongside statutory developments? Competing legal frameworks will be confusing for litigants, particularly with the possibility of different statutory formulations being adopted in states and territories across Australia. At the very least, there is a need for statutory intervention to complement, not contradict, the common law.
2. Extending common law non-delegable duties to intentional torts
If the statutory non-delegable duty proves difficult, then, in terms of definition, scope and political will, can we argue that it lies to the courts to offer an alternative framework? The groundwork exists – the modern Woodland/Kondis non-delegable duty, albeit presently confined to negligent misconduct. While Australia continues to hold firm against this development, in Armes, the UK Supreme Court did not exclude the possibility that, in principle, there could be a non-delegable duty protecting against intentional harm to children in care.Footnote 135 On the facts, the Court held that the wording of the statutory framework rendered the imposition of a non-delegable duty on a local authority providing fostering services “too broad and … the responsibility with which it fixes local authorities is too demanding”.Footnote 136 However, obiter, Lord Reed clearly expressed a view put forward earlier by Stevens – if a non-delegable duty can arise to protect against negligent mistreatment of the victim, can it be right that it does not extend to deliberate mistreatment of the same individual? Stevens is typically more forthright:
Liability for the breach of a [non-delegable] duty cannot be avoided by showing that the breach as gross …. If the duty assumed is a duty that care will be taken, this is breached where the child is abused … [L]iability for deliberate abuse follows a fortiori from liability for want of care.Footnote 137
While this may be contested doctrinally – does negligence encompass deliberate misconduct?Footnote 138 – the policy argument is clear: if the non-delegable duty is there to protect the vulnerable, how can intentional harm be excluded morally from such a duty? Deakin goes further and argues that, while vicarious liability might seem more familiar to lawyers, it is the non-delegable duty which provides the most convincing form of enterprise liability.Footnote 139 Tofaris also argues that Armes should have been a non-delegable duty caseFootnote 140 and draws on a body of literature that indicates that non-delegable duties provide a more appropriate basis of liability in child abuse cases.Footnote 141
Such arguments have force, so the real question is why the English courts have favoured (as in Armes) reliance on vicarious liability rather than non-delegable duties. If, as the authors above suggest, the non-delegable duty provides a purer enterprise risk response and is more focussed on the particular context in which the protective duty arises, why has it yet to be adopted in the UK?
A number of reasons may be identified. First, the non-delegable duty remains, as indicated above, conceptually problematic. At the very least, pre-Woodland (2013), it was not regarded by the courts as providing a conceptual tool upon which the courts could confidently rely. Hence, for the majority of the House of Lords in Lister (2001),Footnote 142 the logical response to the plight of the child abuse victims was to rely on the well-known concept of vicarious liability. Even post-Woodland, the courts are still testing the boundaries of the assumption of responsibility non-delegable duty,Footnote 143 in particular, the relationships to which it applies. On this basis, abuse in a hospital or care home might be deemed to fit easily into this category, but other institutional cases, such as abuse by soccer coaches, scout masters etc. are far from clear and remain to be resolved by the courts. It is a doctrine then which remains in need of clarification and is in the process of legal development.
Second, it is of note that commentators such as Stevens and Beuermann who argue in favour of primary liability see it as an alternative replacing vicarious liability, and offering a more controlled and certain legal framework. Certainly, with hindsight, we can argue that Lister might have been better interpreted as a non-delegable duty case, confined to the particular context of institutional carers abusing the very children they were employed to look after.Footnote 144 The problem is that the UK courts at present seem to be treating the possibility of a non-delegable duty not as an alternative replacing vicarious liability, but as an additional basis for liability. In other words, as Morgan states, a means by which they can extend vicarious liability to independent contractors. In opting, then, in 2001 for vicarious liability in lieu of non-delegable duties, the courts’ choice in CCWS, Cox, Mohamud and Armes has been one of extending, not constraining, the doctrine. As a result of recent cases such as Barclays Bank Plc. v Various Claimants,Footnote 145 in which a bank was held vicariously liable for the sexual assaults of a doctor in private practice offering medical examinations for its job applicants and employees, there is increasingly little need for the UK courts to “add on” non-delegable duties and make the effort needed to resolve the conceptual difficulties associated with them. The non-delegable duty is treated as a fall-back if the vicarious liability argument fails. The problem is that vicarious liability very rarely fails …
We can conclude therefore that, at present, the common law non-delegable duty is simply not strong enough conceptually to match the force of vicarious liability. While academics can make a strong case for reform, without conceptual certainty and the need to engage in the real effort required to construct a controlled legal framework, it seems likely that vicarious liability will continue to be seen by the courts as the “go to” doctrine to deal with claims of historical child sexual abuse. In the next section, I will examine the impact of this finding for the general principles of the law of tort.
IV. Impact on Tort Law Generally
Vicarious liability continues, therefore, to be on the move.Footnote 146 The statutory/common law non-delegable duty for intentional torts, while advocated by the Royal Commission and certain commentators, has yet to be accepted in the UK or Australia. While vicarious liability has proved to be able to respond to the needs of victims of historic child sexual abuse, albeit more flexibly in the UK than in Australia, such developments have had a knock-on effect on tort law generally. In contrast to the Woodland/Kondis non-delegable duty which is premised on an institutional defendant assuming responsibility for the care and welfare of a particular set of victims,Footnote 147 the UK test for vicarious liability is applicable to a broad category of relationships (prison authorities/prisoner in Cox; local authority/foster parents in Armes), within a wide field of activities (racist abuse and attacks in Mohamud) and covers both negligence and intentional torts (Cox/Mohamud). Lord Reed in Cox made it clear that the modern theory of vicarious liability stated in CCWS is not confined to some special category of cases, such as the sexual abuse of children, but intended to provide a basis for identifying the circumstances in which vicarious liability may in principle be imposed.Footnote 148 The criteria set out in CCWS for vicarious liability are therefore as readily applicable to a negligent driver as to a person deliberately attacking a co-worker or customer. In refusing to distinguish sexual abuse cases from other claims in tort, the UK courts have established as a matter of precedent that a broad doctrine of vicarious liability, primarily based on notions of enterprise risk, is applicable across the law of torts.
Inevitably this has led to concerns of over-extensive liability being placed on defendants who are not at fault bar being connected in some way to a tortfeasor “integrated” into their organisation whose torts are “within the field of activities” allocated to him or her. The recent case of Barclays Bank where the bank was found vicariously liable for a doctor in private practice operating from his own consulting rooms has confirmed concern that “the wall around vicarious liability for independent contractors has been breached”.Footnote 149 While some cases have sought to interpret the CCWS test more narrowly,Footnote 150 a broad notion of vicarious liability now operates across the English law of torts, with consequences in terms of loss distribution, insurance and, post-Armes, serious concerns as to its impact on local authority funding. We can also observe that the decisions of the Supreme Court have not diminished litigation in this field. Quite the opposite. A number of cases are currently on appeal raising once again the operation of the two-stage test. A future Supreme Court case on this topic (the fifth since 2012) is increasingly likely.
The issue of vicarious liability and unincorporated associations provides a good illustration of the concerns raised in this paper. One problem facing victims of child sexual abuse cases is that the perpetrators may be working for an organisation that is not incorporated, such as a church, charity, voluntary or sporting organisation. In Australia, the courts have maintained as a matter of strict law that the rules applicable to suing unincorporated associations must continue to be applied. This means that the plaintiff will have to show that the trustee corporation possessed a sufficient community of interest in the matter to maintain an action against it.Footnote 151 The contrast with the position in the UK is remarkable. When the issue was raised in the UK Supreme Court in CCWS, the Court simply dismissed it out of hand: “Because of the manner in which the institute carried on its affairs it is appropriate to approach this case as if the institute were a corporate body existing to perform the function of providing a Christian education to boys, able to own property and, in fact, possessing substantial assets.”Footnote 152
McIvor has argued that the most important contribution of CCWS to the law is its confirmation that unincorporated associations can be subject to vicarious liability, which she describes as “an entirely sensible development”.Footnote 153 The fact remains, however, that a solution provided (with little or no conceptual analysis) to deal with a hurdle facing victims of child sexual abuse now operates across the law of torts. Without, it should be added, any consideration of its broader impact in terms of loss distribution, insurance premiums and so on.
The question is how we react to this. The broad test for vicarious liability, as developed in the UK, would seem lack definitional certainty, is expanding from case to case and lacks a clear theoretical underpinning. The Australian reluctance to follow this path is understandable, particularly as Deakin rightly observes, the law in its current form seems to represent “something of a historical accident” rather than a considered and coherent form of legal development.Footnote 154 Such a view is shared by many UK academics, who fear that, far from seeking a close connection, Mohamud suggests that vicarious liability may arise simply because the employment provides an opportunity for the commission of the wrongful act.Footnote 155 We may also contrast the willingness of English tort law to embrace enterprise risk for vicarious liability with its reluctance to permit claims against public bodies such as the police for negligent investigations.Footnote 156 If vicarious liability is regarded as an exception to corrective (fault-based) liability, how can we accept its ongoing extension to cover claims for which even 10 years ago no court would have considered its imposition?
The Australian response has been to put on the brakes. It is perhaps inevitable that this has led to an overly cautious approach. In particular, retaining a narrow interpretation of “employee” is misguided in that it fails to respond to the casualisation of modern working relationships.Footnote 157 Nowadays the motorcycle courier in Hollis v Vabu Footnote 158 would be far more likely to be working as casual labour than under a contract of employment. Recognising the impact of the gig economy is not a sign of weakness, but one of progress. Nevertheless, the High Court's decision to favour a test of “occasion” does indicate a genuine attempt to adopt a controlled, incremental approach to the growth of vicarious liability. While we can argue whether, in practice, this test will prove sufficiently robust to provide a framework for the course of employment test,Footnote 159 it marks a clear refusal to follow the path of the UK courts and one which, if applied in a clear and structured way, can grow into a test providing guidance for the lower courts.
It is submitted that such an incremental approach provides the most sensible means by which greater clarity can be brought to UK law. It needs, however, to be applied to both stages of the vicarious liability test. On this basis, when applying the stage two “close connection” test to intentional torts, the court should move towards adoption of a more controlled test. It is submitted that the Australian “occasion” test does provide a way forward, albeit one which will require some elaboration by the courts. In focussing on the role given to the employee and the nature of his responsibilities, the court examines the relationship uniting the parties, particularly whether the tortfeasor had been placed in a position where he or she had authority, power, trust, control and the ability to achieve intimacy with the victim. This can be easily translated into the language of risk: vicarious liability should only be imposed if the tortfeasor's role and the nature of his responsibilities give rise to a heightened degree of risk. By such means, the courts have guidance to frame the operation of the doctrine, enabling them to move towards a more structured and coherent framework for vicarious liability. One immediate consequence would be the need to reflect further on the decision taken in Mohamud: can we really say that a kiosk attendant in a petrol station with a duty to interact with customers has such authority, power or control over the customer to give rise to vicarious liability? If not, Mohamud is a step too far.
The incremental approach also suggests a more cautious approach is needed to the stage one relationship test. While it does not prevent the courts imposing vicarious liability on a prison for the misconduct of prisoners working in its kitchen, it stresses that such relationships must be genuinely “akin to employment” and not simply loosely linked to the enterprise. Cox is correct, on this basis, but I would question whether Armes (finding the relationship of foster-carer/local authority akin to employment) is a step too far. This leads to a more radical conclusion. If, as certain commentators have indicated above, the local authority/foster-carer relationship is not naturally “akin to employment”, then rather than denying liability, a case can be made to consider whether the Woodland non-delegable duty should be extended to this scenario. This requires caution. The move from negligence to intentional torts is not to be taken lightly and the statutory framework in question needs to be considered carefully. The latter, it will be recalled, was considered by the Supreme Court to bar this option in Armes. Nevertheless, an incremental approach to vicarious liability requires the court to recognise that vicarious liability has its limits. On this basis, if the “akin to employment” tests fails, the answer is not to further extend the stage one relationship, but look to different options and see whether, exceptionally, the Woodland non-delegable duty should extend to this case. By such means, the law would promote consistency and, it is submitted, diminish the threat of over-extensive liability with defendants acting as guarantors against the possibility of tortious harm. I would argue, therefore, that reining in vicarious liability with cautious development of the Woodland exception will provide the UK courts with the opportunity to provide greater certainty in the law and more predictability for the lower courts. It would, however, require the courts to recognise that Mohamud and Armes need to be reconsidered as illegitimate extensions of the doctrine of vicarious liability.
V. Conclusions
Emerging from four Supreme Court judgments between 2012 and 2017, UK vicarious liability law is still operating in a state of uncertainty. Recent case law continues to test its boundaries. There is a lack of clarity in the current law. The law has been shaped by the global scandal of child sexual abuse as highlighted in the reports of the Australian Royal Commission and IICSA. Difficulties in bringing claims in private law against abusers or for institutional fault have led the courts and reform bodies to consider two options: vicarious liability and non-delegable duties. In particular, the Australian 2015 Redress and Civil Litigation Report recommended the introduction of a statutory non-delegable duty to assist plaintiffs in bringing their claims. As this paper has indicated, the statutory non-delegable duty has not been adopted and we can identify concerns as to its cost, scope and interpretation. The common law non-delegable duty, revived in the UK in Woodland in 2013 based on Australian authority, has received some academic support as a means of dealing with abuse cases, but, as seen, it remains unclear whether the Woodland duty will apply to intentional harm and there are unresolved questions of conceptual clarity. Notably if the non-delegable duty is treated simply as a means of supplementing vicarious liability, it is likely to offer little bar further complicating the existing law. UK and Australian tort law, to date, have thus opted to develop vicarious liability rather than non-delegable duties to assist victims of child sexual abuse. In the UK, in particular, the two-stage test adopted in CCWS permits a flexible approach both to the relationships which give rise to vicarious liability and the “field of activities” covered by the doctrine. Australia, while continuing to require a contract of employment, has, in Prince Alfred College, responded to the need to adjust vicarious liability to meet social concerns and it is hoped that it will only be a matter of time before the High Court reconsiders the “employment” requirement.
My paper has highlighted, however, difficulties arising from the broad doctrine of vicarious liability in UK law and contrasted it with the controlled extension of vicarious liability in Australia. It argues that the time has come to reflect on the current state of English tort law. Recent Supreme Court decisions have led to questionable extensions of both stages of the vicarious liability test and, it is submitted, a more considered approach would ask whether Mohamud and Armes should legitimately be treated as vicarious liability cases. The paper recommends, therefore, adoption of an incremental approach at both stages of the UK vicarious liability test. A case is also made for an exceptional non-delegable duty based on the Woodland framework which could be applied in relation to intentional torts, although it would need to be analysed carefully, notably in relation to the statutory framework within which the institution operates, and would require the court to address fundamental concerns as to the conceptual coherence of such duties.
We often turn to comparative law to learn from other jurisdictions and gain inspiration, particularly in relation to systems sharing a common legal tradition and facing similar social problems.Footnote 160 Prince Alfred College offers a way forward. The High Court advised on the need for an approach which “has the advantage of being likely to identify factors which point toward liability and by that means provide explanation and guidance for future litigation.”Footnote 161 In 2001 in Lister, the House of Lords sought inspiration from Canada.Footnote 162 It is time for the UK Supreme Court to look to the High Court of Australia. In a nutshell, vicarious liability should no longer be on the move. It should stop. And reflect.
