Jury orders insurer to pay over $7 million to Southwestern Seminary
A jury has ruled that an insurer must pay Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary $7.1 million after it tried to deny coverage to the seminary for the Jane Roe lawsuit.
In 2019, a former student identified under the alias "Jane Roe" sued the Texas seminary and its former President Paige Patterson, accusing them of failing to properly respond when she was allegedly sexually assaulted on campus.
Earlier this month, the jury decided that Hanover Insurance must pay SWBTS for refusing to cover the seminary during its litigation with Roe. Hanover is expected to appeal the decision.
“For more than a decade, Southwestern Seminary paid The Hanover Insurance Company millions of dollars in premiums for the very protection it would later need,” said Michael D. Anderson, legal counsel for the seminary, in a statement provided to Baptist Press. “When that moment came, Hanover chose to fight against the institution it had been paid to defend.”
“After more than three years of litigation, a Tarrant County jury has now delivered a decisive verdict for Southwestern Seminary, finding that Hanover acted unfairly toward the Seminary and that it did so knowingly. We are grateful to the jurors and now pray for a swift conclusion, one that makes the Seminary whole and allows it to continue the work to which God has called it.”
Patterson resigned from his position as president of SWBTS in May 2018 in part over allegations that he had a history of mishandling sexual abuse claims. Patterson has denied any wrongdoing.
In May 2019, Roe sued Patterson and the seminary, claiming that they had mistreated her when she reported being stalked and alleged being repeatedly raped by a male student in 2014 and 2015.
The lawsuit alleged that when Roe met with Patterson and other male leaders at SWBTS, Patterson “seemed to enjoy making Roe even more uncomfortable with his questions.”
When Roe reportedly said she felt like “damaged goods” due to the alleged rapes, she claimed Patterson replied it was “a good thing” she was assaulted, for “the right man would not care if she was a virgin or not.”
In March 2023, U.S. District Judge Sean Jordan ruled that Roe did not meet the standard of proof required to demonstrate that SWBTS and Patterson were negligent in preventing sexual abuse on campus.
“The Court holds that Roe’s injuries at the hands of Doe were not foreseeable to SWBTS, even considering altogether the totality of [the male student's alleged] past criminal conduct,” Jordan said.
Jordan also wrote that after the first confirmed instance of Roe meeting with seminary leaders, “Patterson and SWBTS immediately notified local law enforcement authorities of Roe’s outcry, and Roe was interviewed by the Fort Worth Police Department.”
In 2024, SWBTS filed a motion for partial summary judgment alleging that Hanover had wrongfully revised its coverage rules to refuse to cover the seminary amid Roe's litigation.
This included Hanover telling SWBTS in 2022 that it would refuse to provide any potential indemnity coverage for claims related to defamation in the third amended complaint by Roe.
In July of last year, Tarrant County Judge Megan Fahey ruled against Hanover, concluding that the insurer had violated Chapter 541 of the Texas Insurance Code when it tried “to assert non-existent allocation and reimbursement rights.”
“[T]he Hanover Policies are devoid of any right to allow Hanover to perform an allocation of defense costs or to seek reimbursement or recoupment of defense costs from SWBTS in connection with the Roe Suit, and Hanover is not otherwise entitled to seek reimbursement or perform any allocation of defense costs under the common law,” ruled Fahey.
“Hanover’s denial of its prospective indemnity obligations related to the defamation (i.e., ‘personal and advertising injury’) claims was premature and wrongful, and Hanover’s potential indemnity coverage obligations are not negated under the Primary Policies by the pleading allegations set forth in the Third Amended Complaint.”
