The Court granted leave to file a Second Further Amended Statement of Claim in a historical child sexual abuse case, holding that the absence of an affidavit explaining delay was not fatal where the objective circumstances of the litigation — including recent developments in the law following AA v Trustees of the Roman Catholic Church for the Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle [2026] HCA 2 — adequately explained the delay. The amendments, which added claims for battery, intentional infliction of harm (Wilkinson v Downton), non-delegable duty of care, and a personal duty of care by the teacher, were characterised as arising from substantially the same substratum of facts and as proper legal recharacterisation rather than a material change in the factual case. The Court left unresolved the substantive question of whether a teacher at a school is in a relationship of 'schoolmaster or other teacher' and 'pupil' under s 73 of the Crimes Act 1900 (NSW) where the student was not in the teacher's class, finding it at least a triable issue.
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