Parents claim Seton Hall University was negligent in daughter's death

The parents of a Seton Hall University student who died while in isolation when diagnosed with COVID said the university is responsible for her death because it knew of her epilepsy and that being alone could be dangerous.

South Carolina resident Kristen McCartney died on Sept. 20, 2021, and her parents, Sean McCartney and Donna Dockery filed a lawsuit against the university on May 14.

In addition to the university, the board of trustees, board of regents, Cardinal Joseph Tobin, former university President Joseph Nyre and Diane Lynch, director of Health Services at Seton Hall, are named plaintiffs.

The day after the lawsuit was filed, Seton Hall filed a notice of removal with Essex Superior Court.

"Kristen was a beloved member of our community. We continue to mourn her passing, which was heartbreaking but not the result of any actions by the university," said Laurie Pine, director of media relations at the university.

According to the lawsuit, Seton Hall knew of Kristen McCartney's epilepsy, which had been diagnosed in 2011. The suit said it was "well-documented" that McCartney would have at least two seizures a year, including one on Dec. 1, 2020 and Jan. 31, 2021.

"Even despite these facts, the university failed to establish a plan for Kristen to address the serious threat to her health and safety posed by her seizure disorder," the lawsuit said.

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Her parents said when their daughter tested positive for COVID, she was forced to move from her regular dorm into an isolation dorm for 10 days as part of the university's COVID-19 restart plan. The suit said her roommates could have called for help should she have a seizure but instead, she was left alone on the day of her death after a roommate who had also tested positive was discharged from the room.

The lawsuit said Kristen McCartney was found facedown on the dorm room floor, though a South Orange police report says she was on her bed, after she failed to check out of the room and meet her roommates for breakfast. It is believed she suffered a grand mal seizure that may have caused her to bite her tongue and suffocate in her blankets between the time she spoke with her roommates on Sept. 19, 2021 and when she was scheduled to check out.

The lawsuit accuses Seton Hall's restart plan of being "vague" and there were few details regarding the rooms, and the university failed to provide McCartney with health monitoring and other essential services. The lawsuit said there was no plan in place to help McCartney if she had a seizure.

It added that the university didn't do daily routine checks on students in isolation, which the lawsuit said would have been "critical" for McCartney, who had an increased risk of complications from COVID.

According to the lawsuit, her parents were treated "callously" and they said the university made them feel "disrespected and insulted by its refusal to provide them with any information or documentation" about their daughter's death. The suit said the university eventually provided "very minimal, basic information" but it didn't have any detail to determine what happened to Kristen McCartney.

The family said it still doesn't have an explanation as to why it wasn't immediately informed about McCartney's medical emergency when she was found. Family members said they were informed two hours after she was found about her death. Dockery and Sean McCartney said when they asked about what happened, they were "met with only a denial of any knowledge" and were "shocked" with the refusal to provide information 24 hours later.

"Kristen's parents felt like the Seton Hall personnel were unprepared for the meeting, thus felt disrespected and insulted by them," the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit said Dockery and Sean McCartney, who arrived at Seton Hall the day after their daughter died, were never given the university's COVID protocols despite asking for them and had to identify their daughter's body via Zoom.

Dockery and Sean McCartney said Nye promised to give them any information and documentation they needed before going home and that more information would be available within a few weeks. The suit said Nye also assured them that they would be provided information in real time, which ended up being "meaningless" and that the university president may have "intentionally misled them."

The suit said the pair returned home on Sept. 23 with "no more clarity" about what happened to Kristen McCartney and that they received "multiple donation requests" from Seton Hall to their homes in the months following their daughter's death. Dockery made multiple requests for the donation solicitations to stop but they "callously continued," according to the lawsuit.

The family said they asked for Kristen McCartney's autopsy for months from the state Department of Health but didn't get it until eight months after she had died, leaving them without an answer on how their daughter had died.

According to the lawsuit, Kristen McCartney's parents had their attorney send a letter to Nye, submitting a formal complaint to Seton Hall for its "failure to provide adequate information" about their daughter's death and asking for evidence to be preserved for potential future litigation. It also included several questions that the university said it could not answer due to a pending investigation.

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Seton Hall University lawsuit in death of student with COVID