New sex abuse suit filed against Para­mus Catholic

PARAMUS (NJ)
The Bergen Record

March 25, 2026

By Kaitlyn Kan­z­ler

Law­suits con­tinue to pile up against a former Para­mus Cath­olic coach accused of sexu­ally abus­ing dozens of stu­dents dur­ing his time at the school.

Attor­ney James Sul­li­van filed a law­suit on March 19 on behalf of an anonym­ous former stu­dent, who said he was sexu­ally abused on “numer­ous occa­sions” by hockey coach Bern­ard Gar­ris.

The law­suit names Para­mus Cath­olic High School, the Arch­diocese of Newark and the Chris­tian Broth­ers, say­ing they knew about the abuse but failed to stop it.

“We do not com­ment on mat­ters in lit­ig­a­tion,” said Maria Mar­giotta, exec­ut­ive dir­ector of the Depart­ment of Com­mu­nic­a­tions for the dio­cese.

Gar­ris has been the focus of dozens of law­suits, and some of them name gym teacher Donn Ernst. Gar­ris died in 2016, and Ernst died in 2021. Gar­ris was fired from the school in 1987 after the par­ents of a stu­dent deman­ded he be ter­min­ated after an incid­ent that allegedly left the teen injured.

The new law­suit says Gar­ris sexu­ally abused the former stu­dent on school grounds and on school-sanc­tioned ath­letic trips.

It says the former stu­dent came from a devout Roman Cath­olic fam­ily and that the defend­ants soli­cit, mar­ket and recruit fam­il­ies to their pro­grams.

“[The] defend­ants hold out that par­ti­cip­a­tion in their pro­grams and school is safe,” the law­suit says.

The com­plaint says the defend­ants should have known Gar­ris was sexu­ally abus­ing the former stu­dent and oth­ers and “con­cealed import­ant inform­a­tion about cred­ible alleg­a­tions of abuse” by Gar­ris.

The suit accuses the defend­ants of neg­li­gent hir­ing, super­vi­sion and reten­tion, fail­ure to warn and fail­ure to imple­ment adequate child sex abuse policies, neg­li­gent inflic­tion of emo­tional dis­tress and gross neg­li­gence.

The former stu­dent is seek­ing dam­ages and attor­ney’s fees.