I post on behalf of Eoin Quill:

Members might be interested in a recent Irish Supreme Court decision on

vicarious liability for sex abuse in a school setting; the ratio was

that the relationship between the state and a teacher was not sufficient

for vicarious liability, due to a lack of sufficient control (state pays

and has certain functions, such as syllabus, inspection of schools etc,

but day to day management is vested in school boards – mostly run by the

churches and the history of this is set out in some detail in the

judgments).

The court was divided on the issue of whether Bazley/Lister should be

followed; unhelpfully the CJ concurred with two judgments that offered

different dicta on that point, but were agreed on the absence of

sufficient relationship to the wrongdoer.

Before anyone asks, I have no idea why the plaintiff did not join the

school board or church, as earlier cases showed that they might be liable.

The case is O’Keeffe v Hickey & Ireland [2008] IESC 72

Available at

Eoin Quill

School of Law

University of Limerick.

Jason Neyers

Associate Professor of Law &

Cassels Brock LLP Faculty Fellow in Contract Law

Faculty of Law

University of Western Ontario

N6A 3K7

(519) 661-2111 x. 88435