Vicarious liability means abuse survivors can hold institutions responsible

Historical abuse emerged as a significant social issue over recent decades. However, claimants seeking compensation struggle to hold abusers accountable and receive fair compensation. Courts are reluctant to hold an organisation liable for deliberate, wrongful or criminal acts by its employees. The term for this is vicarious liability.

This meant victims of abuse have had to seek compensation directly from their abuser. However, individual abusers come from a variety of circumstances. In historical abuse matters, there are several problems:

• abusers may be difficult to locate,
• they may die before the complainant reports the matter,
• or the abuser has negligible assets.

To overcome these hurdles, survivors attempt to hold institutions vicariously liable for abuse perpetrated by their staff. This allows plaintiffs to sue institutions for fair compensation, rather than relying on an individual to pay compensation.