B&B Owners and Sexual Orientation - Canada

A recent case in Canada deals with almost exactly the same legal question as was considered by the Court of Appeal in February in the case of  Bull v Hall & Preddy [2012] EWCA Civ 83 which I blogged about  here 10 February 2012.   

The issue in both cases involved the Christian Owners of a Bed and Breakfast establishment refusing to let out a double bed room to a Same Sex Couple.  

 In Eadie and Thomas v. Riverbend Bed and Breakfast and others (No. 2),2012 BCHRT 247   the Christian owners of a bed and breakfast in British Columbia have been ordered to pay around $4,500 in damages after they refused to rent a room to a same sex couple.

Brian Thomas and Shaun Eadie had reserved a room at the Riverbend B&B in Grand Forks in June 2009, but owners Les and Susan Molnar cancelled the reservation after realising they were a homosexual couple.  Thomas and Eadie then filed a complaint with the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal  which ruled in their favour..

Tribunal member Enid Marion ordered the Molnars to “cease and desist the discriminatory conduct,” (apparently they had already closed the B&B down in September 2009 as a result of the incident.)

Marion agreed with the two men that the Molnars violated section 8 of the B.C. Human Rights Code , which states that it is a discriminatory practice to

“deny to a person or class of persons any accommodation” because of “sexual orientation.”

He ordered them to pay each man $1,500 for damages to “dignity, feelings and self-respect,” in addition to their travel expenses and lost wages for the tribunal proceedings. In the judgment he wrote

“Having entered into the commercial sphere, the Molnars, like other business people, were required to comply with the laws of the province ... that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation,”  

The legal reasoning in this Canadian decision seems indistinguishable from the reasoning in the English "Bull v Hall " case in February

Catholic Bishops and Vicarious Liability for Priests - 2

The case of JGE v The Portsmouth Roman Catholic Diocesan Trust [2012] EWCA Civ 938 (12 July 2012) is a follow on from the same case in the High Court JGE v The English Province of Our Lady of Charity & Anor [2011] EWHC 2871 (QB) (08 November 2011)  which I blogged about last year


The issue in the case is whether the Portsmouth Diocese could be held Vicariously Liable for alleged Child Abuse occurring 40 years before (I'll return to that point later).  The Claimant alleges she was raped when she was 6 by a Priest of the Diocese.  The Catholic Church does not regard Priests as being its employees but rather as being "Office Holders" and usually in law there is no liability attaching to the acts of a Office Holder, this was for example the legal position as regards Police Constables and it was not until the Police Act 1964 (now s88 the Police Act 1996  )that Chief Constables were made vicariously liable for the wrongful acts of Police Constables under their command. However this act did not change the general legal point that office holders are regarded in law as not being employees and hence as not having an employer who can be held vicariously liable for their acts.


In many other cases involving allegations of sexual abuse by Catholic Clergy the relevant Diocese have not argued the vicarious liability point but agreed that the Court could approach the issue "as if" the Priest in question was an Employee; in this case however the Diocese decided to argue the issue as to whether the Diocese was legally liable and it was argued as a preliminary issue. The Court of Appeal obviously had reservations about this approach as Lord Justice Ward said in para 6
I am far from convinced that trying a preliminary issue is the best way to deal with questions of this sort. 

The Court was also aware that on the facts alleged the Diocese itself was not at fault and did express and indeed Lord Justice Davis noted in para 133 that the entire principle of Vicarious Liability raised questions about
the extent to which, as a matter of policy, an innocent defendant should (without fault) be made to bear responsibility for the wrongful acts of another.


However the Court did decide that even though a Catholic Priest was not an Employee of his Diocese or his Bishop nevertheless the Diocese was vicariously liable for the alleged acts of the Priest and it did accept that in this decision it was extending the legal concept of Vicarious liability.  The ruling has implications for all forms of voluntary organisations since it opens them to the possibility of being sued for the actions of non employees such as volunteers, school governors etc.


More worrying for me is the fact that in this case the Defendant is having to defend itself against allegations of abuse occurring 40 years ago at the hands of someone who is dead.  The allegations are entirely based on the evidence of the Claimant and the accused Priest was dead before the allegations were made. This  puts an impossible burden on any organisation to defend itself.


The Limitation Act 1980  is supposed to prevent claims being brought after six years but the Courts have interpreted it in such a way as to allow sex abuse claims to be brought decades after the alleged events and this makes having a fair trial impossible and circumvents the intention of Parliament when it passed the Limitation Act.  It opens Churches, the Boy Scouts, Barnardos and State Care Homes to the danger of unjustified legal claims in which the only evidence is unsupported allegations made against persons who are dead and unable to defend themselves or their reputation


It is ironic that this decision was made just a week before the High Court begins to hear a case against the UK Government for alleged misconduct in the Mau Mau uprising more than 50 years ago.  By allowing that case and the Portsmouth case to proceed the Courts have subverted the Limitation Act.  Parliament does need to have another look at the entire issue of limitation; surely there has to be a point where allegations are so old that it is simply wrong to allow them to proceed to trial.