BOSTON College Legal Fees Jump To 7 Million in 3 Years For Title IX Due Process Case
At the rate it’s going, Boston College will spend several million in legal fees to defend itself against a single lawsuit by a student it found responsible for sexual assault. That’s according to student journalist Jack Goldman, who covered the litigation for the campus newspaper. Goldman gives a highly detailed recap of BC’s ongoing efforts to get last fall’s jury verdict thrown out, claiming that “no reasonable jury could have found” in favor of the accused student based on “the weight of the evidence” the jury saw. It may have trouble convincing Judge Denise Casper, however: While she often asked Doe’s counsel during trial “to reword the question to avoid issues not covered in the reduced scope of the case,” Casper rarely struck a question from being asked at all.
“Given that Doe did do exactly what Casper asked and rarely asked questions that were easily dismissed as out of bounds, it’s not clear how solid BC’s case for the motion actually is,” Goldman reported. The judge issued the jury’s final judgment last week but stayed the order so the college can appeal. The college has another problem, which is that the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals already overruled Casper once and faulted a BC administrator for admitting she didn’t see Doe’s hearing as a “search for truth.” The hearing panel also found Doe guilty of an allegation his accuser never made, apparently because it didn’t find her actual allegation credible.
The college spent about a third more on legal fees in FY18 ($2.16 million) than it did the previous year ($1.6 million), Goldman found. From FY16 through FY18, the college spent $5.26 million in legal fees. When FY19 figures are announced, they are likely to show the college spent more than $7 million on legal fees going back to 2016, the vast majority related to Doe’s case, which was filed that year, according to Goldman. “The exact dollar amount BC has spent on this case will never be public info since BC does not have to differentiate legal costs in one case from another on its 990 (it’s just a lump sum),” Goldman said:
thecollegefix-Greg Piper
