Court Partially Blocks Release of Seton Hall Sex Abuse Report

A panel of New Jersey judges ruled last week that Seton Hall University doesn’t have to release the first two parts of the university’s three-part 2019 investigative report on sexual abuse allegations against former cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who died last year. 

The ruling on those records is the latest development regarding a lawsuit that dates back to 2020, when the Superior Court of New Jersey consolidated some 450 sexual abuse complaints into one case against the university. Seton Hall retained the law firm of Gibbons PC, which then retained the law firm Latham & Watkins LLP to conduct an independent investigation into McCarrick, which the ruling refers to as the Latham Report.”

But the plaintiffs didn’t find out about the existence of the Latham Report until 2024, when Politico reported on it; after that, their legal team sought to obtain it. 

In November of last year, Superior Court Judge Avion Benjamin ordered the university to turn over the report. On June 15, appellate court judges Thomas Sumners, Mark Chase and Lorraine M. Augostini reversed much of Benjamin’s ruling.  

“There is undoubtedly an attorney-client relationship between Gibbons and SHU, and the court’s analysis failed to consider that Latham was acting as an agent of Gibbons when it conducted the investigation,”  the decision reads. “An investigator acting on behalf of counsel renders service on behalf of that counsel’s client.” 

However, Seton Hall still has to turn over the third part of the report.

According to the ruling, it includes a “self-critical analysis” of the university’s sexual harassment policies that “examined whether the University’s historical and current policies satisfy Title IX,” as well as “if and how they would have applied to the McCarrick allegations.” Releasing the report, it added, is “in the public interest.”

“The chilling effect that would discourage witnesses from answering interviews and surveys truthfully is minimal, since the Latham Report does not disclose any names, and the survey of fifty-nine seminarians was conducted anonymously,” the decision reads. “Thus, it is in the public interest to disclose self-critical analyses of SHU’s policies and procedures.”

According to Politico, lawyers for the sexual abuse survivors are weighing their options after this latest ruling. 

“With regard to the decision, we appreciate that the Appellate Division agreed that parts of the Latham Report must be produced,” the attorney, Gabriel Magee, said in a statement to Politico. “But we are still digesting the rest of the decision and considering our appeal options.”