Grace Tame Law Reform
Title: Grace Tame demands law reform after Diocese of Ballarat cleared of vicarious liability
Author: Joanna Woodburn & Eden Hynninen
Publisher: ABC News
Date: 20Dec2025
In short:
Grace Tame and a man known as DP are launching a campaign for consistent state and territory-based legislative reform.
It has been triggered by a High Court judgment that found the Diocese of Ballarat was not vicariously liable for abuse perpetrated by one of its priests.
What’s next?
They want every state and territory to change their vicarious liability laws and make them retrospective.
A national campaign is being launched to close a legislative loophole that lawyers say is being “weaponised” to block victim-survivors of child sexual abuse from pursuing justice in court.
Former Australian of the Year Grace Tame has joined forces with a man whose legal action against the Catholic Diocese of Ballarat was appealed in the High Court in November 2024.
The man, known by the pseudonym DP, took the diocese to the Supreme Court of Victoria in 2020 claiming psychological injuries for assaults committed by paedophile priest Father Bryan Coffey.
He was five years old when he was sexually abused by Coffey in his parents’ home at Port Fairy in 1971.
The Supreme Court found the diocese was vicariously liable for the actions of Coffey, who died in 2013, and awarded DP $200,000 in damages for pain and suffering.
The Court of Appeal then dismissed the diocese’s challenge.
But the diocese appealed to the High Court, which set aside the previous judgments and found that the Diocese of Ballarat was not vicariously liable for Coffey’s offences.
“The case was draining,” DP said in a statement.
“I have been frustrated at the overall legal process and devastated at the outcome.
“The Catholic Church threw everything at me to make me break and walk away. I didn’t. The law is not right.”
Under Australian law, an institution or organisation can be held vicariously liable for a person’s actions if they are an employee and the act is perpetrated at work or in the course of their employment.
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