High Court finds Catholic Church liable for priest’s sexual abuse but halves compensation
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-02-11/high-court-catholic-church-liable-priest-sexual-abuse/106329926?utm_source=abc_news_app&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_campaign=abc_news_app&utm_content=other
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Western Bulldogs football club were ordered to pay $5.9 million because a volunteer at the club raped a child decades ago.
Here, the high court has just reduced a payout to a victim to just $335k because the church shouldn’t be held responsible for the priest given he’s technically not an employee.
An organisation that required a royal commission because of the level of rape being covered up is ordered to pay just $335k while a sporting club had already set the precedent of being ordered to pay $5.9 million.
Disgusting outcome
The richest “corporate” church in the world. Net worth: $30 billion in Oz.
Go figure.
wrt halving the damages:
>No more need be said about damages, however, because in this case the parties agreed that if the provisions of the NSW Civil Liability Act (including s 3C) applied to the Diocese then the award of damages the primary judge made to AA had to be reduced to $335,960 (economic loss of $90,480, plus non-economic loss of $245,480).
These limitations on damages are due to the Civil Liability Act 2002 (NSW)
Case here
[https://www.hcourt.gov.au/cases-and-judgments/judgments/judgments-1998-current/aa-v-trustees-roman-catholic-church-diocese-maitland-newcastle](https://www.hcourt.gov.au/cases-and-judgments/judgments/judgments-1998-current/aa-v-trustees-roman-catholic-church-diocese-maitland-newcastle)
summary here [https://www.hcourt.gov.au/sites/default/files/judgment-summaries/2026-02/hca-2-2026-02-11.pdf](https://www.hcourt.gov.au/sites/default/files/judgment-summaries/2026-02/hca-2-2026-02-11.pdf)
The priests were employees when they got jobkeeper during covid.
So are priests not employees then? Does that mean they don’t get any leave entitlements or long service leave?
I don’t understand that works in the Australian framework. You can have someone doing work for you that’s not independent, you are paying for and lodging them, but are not an employee?
People really need to wake up how corrupt the court system is in Australia
Catholic Church has many cases of abuse in Australia and globally. A strong reputation for cover-ups. Labor/LNP: zzz
CFMEU has some allegations of intimidating developers. Labor/LNP: Time to seize the whole 130,000 member union and ban the democratically-elected leadership from running other unions.
Seize the Catholic Church, Anthony Albanese. Ban the religious leaders caught doing cover-ups from running any religious organisation in Australia. Do you want the church to stop being corrupt or are you an anti-union pedo-supporter?
The high court continuing their trend of being a good friend of the Church.
God found a way, again
Disgusting.