Judge Dismisses Part of Harvard’s Lawsuit to Recoup Millions in Legal Fees

A federal judge agreed to dismiss two counts in a lawsuit filed by Harvard against insurance broker Marsh USA in a major setback for the University’s efforts to recoup nearly $15 million in legal fees incurred from defending its race-conscious admissions practices in court.

Judge Allison D. Burroughs sided with Marsh USA in her decision to dismiss the lawsuit’s two counts alleging breach of contract, according to a court filing on Thursday.

Burroughs ruled that Harvard sued Marsh after the statute of limitations for the claims had already expired, a decision that dramatically narrowed the University’s lawsuit against Marsh. The lawsuit’s two counts alleging broker malpractice remain pending.

Harvard spokesperson Sarah K. O’Reilly declined to comment on the case. A spokesperson for Marsh also declined to comment.

Harvard has been engaged in a yearslong effort to recover the legal fees from its nearly decade-long trial against Students for Fair Admissions, the anti-affirmative action group that sued Harvard over its consideration of race in undergraduate admissions. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of SFFA in a landmark ruling last year.

In 2021, Harvard sued Zurich American Insurance Company in an attempt to force the insurer to cover the University’s expensive legal battle against SFFA. Zurich declined to cover millions of dollars in legal fees because it claimed that Harvard had waited too long to notify the insurer of the SFFA lawsuit, per their agreement.

A federal judge ruled against Harvard in 2022, and an appeals court affirmed the decision in 2023.

Harvard then sued Marsh in October 2023, alleging that the insurance broker cost the University millions of dollars by failing to properly notify Zurich of the SFFA lawsuit

In January, Marsh filed a motion to dismiss the case entirely, claiming that the statute of limitations for Harvard’s claims already expired in September 2022 under New York state law — which governed the brokerage agreement signed between Marsh and Harvard — more than a year before the University first filed its lawsuit against Marsh.

Harvard disagreed at the time, claiming that the case falls under Massachusetts state law and therefore contained a statute of limitations that expired in February 2024.

While Harvard remains embroiled in an effort to recoup costs from the trial, SFFA — after winning parallel suits against Harvard and the University of North Carolina — has had its fees covered by the defendants.

A public records request by Reuters in Jan. 2024 found that UNC paid SFFA $4.8 million to cover the group’s legal expenses as part of a settlement after the trial.

Harvard settled a similar request, though the exact amount given by the University to cover SFFA’s legal fees has not been publicly disclosed.

—Staff writer Matan H. Josephy can be reached matan.josephy@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @matanjosephy.