Family of Johnny Gaudreau, brother file court request to stop release of records
The family and estates of late Columbus Blue Jackets forward Johnny Gaudreau and his brother Matthew have filed a request in a New Jersey court to keep records related to the investigation of the brothers' deaths from being released.
The motion, filed in New Jersey Superior Court on Sept. 26, seeks to keep 911 calls, scene photographs, autopsy reports and other investigative materials from being released publicly under New Jersey's Open Public Records Act. The filing was made one day before court records say the 911 calls were set to be released by the Salem County Prosecutor's office, court records say.
The motion was first reported by NJ.com .
Johnny Gaudreau, 31, and his brother, Matthew, 29, died on Aug. 29 after being struck by a vehicle in Oldmans Township, New Jersey. The brothers had been bicycling while in town for the wedding of their younger sister, who was to be married the next day.
The driver who struck the Gaudreau brothers, 43-year-old Sean Higgins, has been charged with two counts of vehicular homicide and remains in a New Jersey jail . His next court date, a pre-indictment conference, is currently scheduled for Oct. 15, the day of the Columbus Blue Jackets home opener , where the brothers will be honored in a pregame ceremony.
Court records show Higgins told New Jersey State Police he had consumed "five or six" beers and thought a vehicle that had moved to the left to avoid the Gaudreaus had been trying to block his path. Higgins drove around that car on the right, striking the Gaudreaus.
In a September hearing, prosecutors said Higgin's blood alcohol level was 0.087, which is over the legal limit of 0.08.
Requesting 911 calls, autopsy report information and investigative documents that are considered public records is standard for many news organizations. The Dispatch is one of the news outlets that has requested such documents from New Jersey authorities in this matter.
Continuing coverage: Memorializing Johnny, Matthew Gaudreau: 'We've been robbed of something here today'
The filing by the estates of the brothers said releasing the records would cause "irreparable harm, the extent of which is not possible to fully gauge at present," and "damages would be inadequate" to compensate for the family's loss of privacy.
"This private and sensitive material would undoubtedly be posted on news websites within hours, if not minutes," the filing says. "Once that material is disseminated to the public, the harm caused by its disclosure cannot be undone."
The filing added that even an order in retrospect for media outlets to stop sharing information after it was released would be inadequate because the information would have already spread too far to retract.
"The Gaudreaus were not in a public service profession, nor is this information related to governmental operations or wrongdoing by a public official," the court documents say. "Thus, there is absolutely no public interest to justify the immediate release of such materials. Any request by the news or media outlet would be purely for the outlet's own viewership. This agenda — which benefits no one but the news outlets themselves — must be set aside in light of the privacy interests of the decedent's family, who are very much private citizens. The wives of these young men, Meredith and Madeline Gaudreau, as well as their children and future children, deserve the protections our state's laws afford to them."
The filing calls the media requests for information under New Jersey's Open Public Records Act a means to "gather sensational gossip."
A hearing on the request to keep the records from being released is scheduled for Oct. 8. In the interim, the records are not able to be released.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Johnny Gaudreau's family asks New Jersey court to seal records
