Lawyers suing the Newark archdiocese over sex abuse claims are seeking internal Seton Hall University documents the school says should remain secret. (Photo by New Jersey Monitor)
A state judge will hear arguments Tuesday in a fight over whether Seton Hall University must disclose secret documents to lawyers suing the Archdiocese of Newark over its handling of sexual abuse claims.
Seton Hall administrators have refused to hand over the documents, which include a 2019 investigative report on abuse allegations at the school’s seminary and alleged failures by Monsignor Joseph R. Reilly, the university’s president since last July and a former seminary rector and dean, to properly report them.
In a February motion, the school’s lawyers argued the report and related records are protected by attorney-client privilege because they were prepared to help the school respond to anticipated litigation. They want a judge to issue an order protecting the documents from disclosure.
“The compelled disclosure of these documents will have a chilling effect on all universities and corporations in New Jersey, sending the message that institutions should not retain counsel to protect their rights and responsibilities in anticipation of litigation or take action to mitigate potential legal exposure, because, years in the future, a court may order counsel’s work product and privileged communications to their client to be disclosed to an adverse party,” Seton Hall’sattorneys wrote.
But the plaintiffs’ attorneys, who say they learned of the secret documents after Politico New Jersey reported about them, disputed the purpose of the report, saying it was an independent investigation Seton Hall’s board of regents commissioned to learn more about the abuse allegations and the administration’s response. Attorney-client privilege only exists between attorneys and their clients, they noted.
Seton Hall shared the report with the Vatican, and under New Jersey law, sharing purportedly privileged documents and information waives any privilege, the plaintiffs’ attorneys wrote in a brief filed earlier this month.
“In New Jersey, an assertion of privilege applies only to the attorneys’ thoughts, conclusions, and recommendations. It does not cloak an entire document or communication in a blanket of privilege, and it does not apply to factual information or assertions within the documents,” the attorneys wrote.
The case at hand involves claims by 450 plaintiffs that they were sexually abused by clergy in the Newark archdiocese. A judge overseeing the case ordered the archdiocese in 2020 to disclose documents to plaintiffs, but Seton Hall’s attorneys have argued they did not have to comply with that order because the university is a separately named defendant in only six of about 450 cases that were consolidated.
Attorneys for the plaintiffs rejected that claim too, saying Seton Hall is part of the archdiocese and consequently must comply or “face significant monetary sanctions.”
Seton Hall’s “suggestion that it is not subject to this Court’s Orders requiring the production of institutional discovery is, at best, flawed, and, at worst, intentionally deceitful,” they wrote.
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