The Court of Appeal for British Columbia recently dealt with a case involving vicarious liability where an organisation was sued for sexual abuse perpetrated by a volunteer against a young person in their care.
The volunteer had been arranged by the organisation to provide services that brought him into regular contact with the victim.
The victim argued that the organisation should be held responsible for the abuse, claiming that the arrangements put in place created the conditions that allowed the grooming and subsequent abuse to occur.
The victim's legal team argued that the organisation failed to properly apply established legal tests and precedents when determining liability, and that the initial contact facilitated by the organisation was sufficient to establish a strong connection between the institutional arrangements and the harm that followed.
The court examined whether institutions can be held responsible for abuse that occurs primarily off-site, despite the relationship between abuser and victim beginning within the organisational environment.
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