Middlesex County Superior Court in New Brunswick/courtesy photo

A judge is drawing criticism in Middlesex County Superior Court for placing a personal injury verdict under seal right after the jury rendered it.

Judge Thomas Buck issued the order Nov. 8 after conducting a four-week trial in Silva v. Jacobs, which was brought by a worker who was injured in a construction accident. Counsel for defendant Jacobs Engineering Group sought to have the verdict kept under wraps after it was announced in open court, said Mark Morris, a lawyer for plaintiff Joao Silva, in a letter sent to Buck on Monday.

Jacobs Engineering's lawyer, Timothy Saia of Morgan Melhuish Abrutyn in Livingston, sought to have the verdict deemed confidential after finding out the jury returned a plaintiff's verdict, Morris wrote in the letter. The court's action is "entirely unheard of and extraordinary," Morris wrote in the letter, which urged the judge to deny the request.

The case's connection to a $17 million, publicly funded New Jersey Turnpike bridge construction project is a further reason to keep the verdict public, said Morris, who is with Gerald Clark's office in Belmar.  The complaint in the case said Silva, a union laborer for defendant Contico Corp., was severely injured when he was struck by a construction vehicle in Secaucus on Dec. 10, 2013.

"Failing to manage safety on a Turnpike job like this jury found places the public at risk. Jacobs' request to hide the truth is abhorrent to the public interest, our court rules, and case law," Morris wrote to the judge.

"Jacobs was expecting a no cause verdict and it was not until after they lost [that] they tried to get it sealed," Morris said in his letter to Buck. "Jury verdicts are a public record and comprehensive research has not revealed a single instance where a civil injury jury verdict was sealed," he said.

The complaint, filed in 2015, named multiple defendants, but Jacobs was the only defendant remaining when the case went to trial. The plaintiffs maintained that Jacobs was negligent for failing to maintain safe conditions at the work site.

A party seeking to seal a record must demonstrate that disclosure will likely cause "a clearly defined and serious injury to any person or entity," and the interest of that person or entity in privacy "substantially outweighs the presumption that all court and administrative records are open for public inspection," Morris' letter stated. But no motion was filed by Saia, and nothing to support the burden was set forth under court rules, but simply a request to seal the verdict after counsel for Jacobs Engineering found out they lost, Morris said in the letter.

Morris said in his letter to the judge that both sides placed terms of a high-low agreement on the record Nov. 6, and at that time Saia did not indicate a desire to make the verdict confidential. But the next day, after the jury found his client 100% at fault, they sought to keep the verdict under wraps, Clark said.

A note on the case Tuesday in the judiciary's online case management system says that "Until the conclusion of this matter, any mention of the verdict amount shall not be exposed via e-Courts. Contact Chamber [sic] with any questions or concerns."

The order issued by Buck says the verdict sheet would be filed under seal pursuant to terms of a high-low agreement between the parties.

A person who answered the phone at Buck's chambers on Tuesday referred a reporter to the judiciary's communications department.

Saia did not respond to requests for comment about the case. Nor did Morris. The judiciary's communications department had no comment.

Clark said he hoped the judge would rectify the error.

"I think this is just Jacobs pushing for something that's not provided under the rules," Clark said.