Delbarton jury starts deliberations on punitive damages in sex assault trial
(Morristown Daily Record) — Jurors resumed deliberations Wednesday to consider punitive damages against the Delbarton School, a week after awarding $5 million to a former student who said he was sexually abused by a priest in 1976.
Read the Entire Article and Comments Here
The jury deliberated for three hours at the Morris County Courthouse on Oct. 15 without reaching a decision, after earlier hearing from witnesses for the plaintiff and defendants as well as receiving instructions from Superior Court Judge Louis Sceusi.
Sceusi advised the six-member panel that punitive damages are reserved for “exceptional circumstances” in which wrongdoers acted in “an especially egregious and outrageous manner,” with “malicious intent” or “wanton willful disregard of the plaintiff’s rights.”
The trial is scheduled to resume on Oct. 16.
A sign outside a jury room at the Morris County Courthouse as jurors deliberated during the Delbarton School sex assault trial on Oct. 7, 2025.
Last week’s $5 million compensatory-damage verdict was the climax of a five-week trial against Delbarton and the Order of St. Benedict of New Jersey, which runs the all-boys school in Morris Township. The jury ordered the OSBNJ to pay 65% of the award and found the Rev. Richard Lott, the now 89-year-old priest accused of the abuse, liable for the rest.
Defense attorney Kurt Krauss struck a similar note to Sceusi in his summation, arguing that punitive damages are not intended to be “icing on the cake” for the plaintiff.
He recounted testimony from OSBNJ and Delbarton staff that safeguards are now in place to protect both students and adults from abuse, including accreditation by an outside firm. The plaintiff, identified in court only as “T.M.,” had proved “no malice” on the part of Lott, Krauss added.
T.M., who is now 65, testified that he has had trouble maintaining a career or relationships since the incident with Lott and was further traumatized by the school’s “betrayal” in not following through when he reported the violation.
Krauss reminded the jury that while they had found both Lott and the school liable for the damages T.M. suffered, they also had found no negligence on the part of OSBNJ for allowing the assault to happen or not having stronger policies in place at the time. Delbarton has argued that it followed standard procedures in the 1970s, when the danger of sexual abuse from priests or teachers was not as well understood.
“The plaintiff wants more money,” Krauss concluded on Wednesday. “That’s all it comes down to.”
T.M.’s attorney, Michael Geibelson, asked the jury if they agreed that “It’s pretty shocking to get a 15-year-old drunk and sexually abuse him?”
In his summation, Geibelson also cited a statement issued hours after last week’s verdict by Abbot Jonathan Licari, the head of the order, and Father Michael Tidd, Delbarton’s headmaster. It said they disagreed with the verdict and found the compensatory award to be excessive.
‘They still don’t get it’
“They still don’t get it,” Geibelson said. “They still don’t accept T.M. was abused. They didn’t listen then, and they are refusing to listen now.”
He referred again to what he called “a culture of abuse and a culture of silence” at Delbarton and the adjacent St. Mary’s Abbey. That culture led to T.M. having “his life destroyed.”
“Maybe, just maybe, your verdict will make them listen,” he concluded.
T.M. testified during the trial that he wrote a letter after graduating in 1977 to Abbot Brian Clarke, the order’s leader at the time. He said it detailed his assault by Lott, who the former student described as his mentor. According to T.M., Lott got him drunk with beer at an off-campus New Year’s Eve party on Dec. 31, 1975. The abuse allegedly occurred after they returned to Lott’s quarters in a maintenance barn on campus.
Lott maintained his innocence during the trial. He testified that he was at a Jersey Shore church on the night of the alleged assault.
Richard Lott took care of a garden at St. Mary’s Abbey and Delbarton as part of his job as head of maintenance.
Why the Delbarton case is a landmark
The landmark trial is significant as the first of hundreds of civil sexual abuse cases against the Catholic Church to reach a jury in New Jersey. It’s also the first trial among more than three dozen abuse suits pending against Delbarton.
Tidd testified on Oct. 14 that a large punitive award “could put us out of business.” He also said that the OSBNJ’s total net assets to date are $164.3 million.
New Jersey tort statutes limit a punitive award to a maximum of five times the compensatory award.
The $5 million compensatory verdict alone “should send a powerful message to all institutions that they must take allegations seriously,” said Mark Crawford, the New Jersey director for SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, after last week’s verdict.
Delbarton jury starts deliberations on punitive damages in sex assault trial
Thursday, October 16, 2025
William Westhoven
Morristown Daily Record
