Australian Lawyers Weekly reports…
A Canberra college which regards its drinking culture as a “badge of honour” has been ordered to pay a former student $420,000 in damages for breaching their duty of care when she came forward with allegations of sexual assault during a campus event.
A former law student was told by her head of college he was “not sure [that] anything did actually happen”, suggested her alcohol consumption was a problem and that “when boys are drunk, they can be quite arrogant but are underperformers”.
ACT Supreme Court’s Justice Michael Elkaim awarded the student – referred to as the “plaintiff” – $420,000 in damages for conduct that occurred while she was studying and living at John XXIII College, controlled by the Australian National University (ANU).
The plaintiff was taking part in a bar-hopping event dubbed “Pub Golf”, the hazing ritual in which students started at the on-campus bar before moving to one not affiliated with the college. While it did offer “drinking cards” to students, it had no official connection.
College officials directed the clearly-and-overly intoxicated group to leave the campus, which the plaintiff alleged demonstrated they had breached their duty of care.
