In July 2015 a three judge panel ruled to allow a lawsuit against the Diocese of Raleigh over an allegation of child sexual abuse by a priest to advance. The North Carolina Court of Appeals rejected arguments made by lawyers representing Bishop Burbidge and the Diocese that claimed allowing the lawsuit to advance into trial would violate the constitutional separation of church and state. The case involved allegations of sexual abuse of a sixteen year old boy by Edgar Sepulveda, a Catholic priest of the Santa Teresa del Niño Jesús Mission in Beulaville, North Carolina. Sepulveda denied the accusations. Sepulveda had been arrested in 2010 and charged with second-degree sexual offense and sexual battery but the charges were dropped by Brunswick County prosecutors citing a lack of evidence. Bishop Burbidge put Sepulveda on administrative leave, prohibiting him from visiting any parish or Catholic school, and removed him from residence on church grounds. The lawsuit claimed that the bishop was negligent and inflicted further emotional distress on the victim by refusing to order Sepulveda to undergo testing for sexually transmitted diseases and then share results with the victim's family. The church's lawyers denied that church officials had any knowledge of Sepulveda's alleged actions.