After two and half years, there has only been one hearing in Mike McQueary’s whistleblower lawsuit against Penn State, and that was back in 2013.
That was supposed to change on Thursday morning, when a second courtroom showdown was scheduled at the Centre County Courthouse. But it looks like McQueary’s already lengthy lawsuit will be drawn out just a bit more.
Late in the day Wednesday, the McQueary hearing was indefinitely delayed, and no rescheduled date has been set. The notice on the Centre County Courts website does not give a reason for the continuation. The delay came as suddenly as the original scheduling order, which was posted only two days before the hearing was supposed to take place.
McQueary filed his lawsuit in October 2012. He had been a key witness in the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse case, and testified before a grand jury that he had witnessed Sandusky sexually abusing a young boy in a university locker room shower in 2001.
But when NFL coach Bill O’Brien took over the reigns of Penn State’s football program in 2012, McQueary was not kept on the university’s payroll. In his lawsuit, McQueary alleges that he was wrongly fired because of his role in the Sandusky case and that his reputation was damaged in the fallout from the ensuing scandal.
Since McQueary first brought his complaint to the Centre County Court of Common Pleas, the litigation has progressed slowly. At one point, more than a year passed without any public action in the case. But McQueary hadn’t given up. His lawyers say they reached “an impasse” with Penn State while trying to obtain documents they claim are relevant.
The lawsuit flared up again last December, when McQueary asked the court to force Penn State to turn over a number of confidential emails related to his firing along with statements made by the university that McQueary says were defamatory. Penn State fired back, calling McQueary’s demands “without merit” and asking the court to deny the request.
But there’s a new twist that could come up for discussion whenever the hearing gets rescheduled: two Penn State administrators accused of trying to cover up the Sandusky scandal also want to prevent McQueary from getting his hands on certain documents.
Former university administrators Gary Schultz and Tim Curley entered the fray earlier this month, filing an emergency petition to keep a handful of emails and other documents out of McQueary’s lawsuit.
Specifically, the two men want to prevent the release of emails between former Penn State general counsel Cynthia Baldwin and their current defense attorneys. Baldwin’s connection to Curley and Schultz is a major issue in their pending criminal cases in Dauphin County Court.
Both Schultz and Curley face felony charges for their roles in an alleged Sandusky scandal coverup. Both men are currently appealing a judge’s decision to allow Baldwin’s grand jury testimony as evidence in their criminal cases, which is part of the reason they’re trying to keep Baldwin’s emails out of the McQueary suit. They claim that Baldwin was representing them, and that her grand jury testimony violated attorney-client privilege.
This new hearing (whenever it comes to pass) probably won’t end with McQueary walking away with the $4 million in damages he’s seeking from Penn State, but it could be a significant step forward in this slow-burning lawsuit.
Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this story did not account for the hearing’s sudden delay.
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