The High Court rejected a woman’s claims against the Minister for Education and Science, Ireland, and the Attorney General over sexual assaults by a school principal in 1973, finding that the Minister was not vicariously liable for the assaults.
In a judgment delivered on 20 January 2006, Mr Justice de Valera said the plaintiff’s claim was not barred by the Statute of Limitations. She had issued proceedings in September 1998, about 25 years after the assaults. The judge accepted evidence that she only realised in June 1998, during the first defendant’s trial in the Circuit Criminal Court, that her psychiatric and psychological problems could be attributed to his actions.
The defendants also argued that the delay made it unreasonable to expect them to defend the case. The judge acknowledged the long lapse of time but found no culpable delay after the plaintiff’s knowledge arose. The only specific prejudice raised was the death of C.S.; he said the person had died at a time when reasonable expedition would not have ensured his availability as a witness. He also noted that the assaults were not contested and the defendants relied on legal arguments rather than disputing the facts. He ruled that the balance of justice favoured allowing the action to proceed.
The plaintiff alleged that the Minister, the State and the Attorney General were vicariously liable. The judgment described the manager as the school’s “direct governor”, responsible for selecting and appointing teachers and principals. The Department of Education paid teachers’ salaries, checked their qualifications and had a supervisory role, but the judge found that the school was owned by the Roman Catholic Diocese of C. and R. and was not managed by the Department.
Relying on a previous High Court decision concerning a religiously managed school, the judge concluded that the Minister was not the principal’s employer and was not vicariously liable. He also accepted the defendants’ submissions on the plaintiff’s claim that her constitutional rights to bodily integrity and privacy had been infringed, citing a prior decision that no separate action for breach of a constitutional right lay where existing law protected that right.
The judgment records that, before this hearing, the plaintiff had obtained a default judgment against the first defendant, who did not appear or have representation at the later hearing. At the conclusion of the plaintiff’s case, the court had also granted a direction nonsuiting her on allegations that the Minister negligently failed to put measures in place to detect and prevent abuse. The judgment concludes that the plaintiff’s claim against the second, third and fourth defendants failed because the Minister was not vicariously liable.