A class action filed in the Federal Court of Australia alleges that aged care provider Arcare extracted more than $100 million from elderly residents by charging mandatory daily fees for services many of them were physically incapable of using. Lawyer Damian Scattini filed the suit on behalf of residents across more than 50 Arcare facilities in four states, with 82-year-old Dianne Strickland, a former resident of Arcare Carnegie in Victoria, named as lead plaintiff. The alleged conduct spans six years — July 2020 to July 2026.

The mechanics of the alleged scheme, as set out in the statement of claim, centre on what Arcare called a "signature package": a bundled set of additional services attached to a mandatory daily fee that residents were told was a non-negotiable condition of admission. The claim alleges the fee was not uniform — Arcare is said to have used residents' own financial information to calibrate what each individual was charged, pricing to capacity rather than to the cost of services rendered.

The specific service mismatches alleged are striking. Residents on prescribed dietary regimes, receiving enteral nutrition, or on pureed and modified-texture diets were charged for high teas, menu choices, and alcoholic beverages they could not consume. Those who were non-ambulatory or bed-confined were billed for bus outings and exercise classes. Some residents who lacked the cognitive or physical capacity to operate a television — and in some cases were unconscious — were nonetheless charged for Foxtel subscriptions, newspaper delivery, and wireless internet access, according to the statement of claim reported by The Guardian.

The legal theory rests primarily on unconscionable conduct under Australian Consumer Law. The pleading argues that residents occupied a structurally unequal bargaining position — dependent on the provider for accommodation, care, and in many cases cognitive or physical support — and that Arcare exploited that dependency when presenting the signature package as a take-it-or-leave-it condition of entry. Unconscionable conduct claims in Australian consumer law do not require proof of deliberate predation; they require showing that a stronger party took advantage of a weaker party's special disadvantage in a way that a reasonable observer would regard as against conscience.

The $100 million figure, reported by Nine/60 Minutes, covers the aggregate fees collected across the class over the six-year period. Class size and precise damages methodology have not yet been made public. As of publication, Arcare had not filed a response to the court.

The broader context here matters for anyone working in aged care governance, elder law, or consumer regulation. Australia's aged care sector has been under sustained structural scrutiny since the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety delivered its final report in 2021, recommending sweeping reforms to funding, staffing, and the protection of residents' rights. The Additional Services framework — through which providers can charge fees above the basic daily fee for supplementary amenities — has been a known pressure point, with critics arguing it creates commercial incentives misaligned with resident welfare. This litigation, if it proceeds to trial, will test whether that framework, as implemented by at least one major provider, crossed the line from permissible fee-for-service into conduct the courts will not countenance.

Arcare is a for-profit operator, a designation that matters in this context. For-profit providers have faced greater scrutiny than not-for-profit counterparts on the question of whether surplus revenue is reinvested in care quality or returned to shareholders. A finding of unconscionable conduct — or even a settlement of the scale implied by the claimed quantum — would carry significant reputational and regulatory consequences, and would likely accelerate government attention to how Additional Services fees are structured, disclosed, and audited sector-wide.

No trial date has been set. The absence of a filed defence means the allegations remain untested. What the claim does establish, procedurally, is that a Federal Court judge will now oversee whether the case meets the threshold for class certification — the first substantive legal hurdle Scattini's team must clear before the merits are reached.