Kamehameha Schools is trying to get back as much as $2 million of the $7 million it paid last year to settle a lawsuit that challenged its admissions policy favoring Hawaiian students, according to legal papers filed in federal court in California.

The papers are contained in new litigation filed after publication of an Advertiser news story in February that revealed that the settlement was $7 million.

The settlement money was paid to a Big Island mother and child in return for their agreement to drop the lawsuit just before the U.S. Supreme Court was to decide whether it would hear an appeal of the case.

The plaintiffs, who have never been identifed and are known only as Jane and John Doe, alleged in the California case that the schools "threatened" to publicly identify them if they did not place $2 million in an escrow account for possible return to the schools because terms of the confidential settlement had been revealed.

Schools vice president Ann Botticelli referred questions about the action to attorney Paul Alston, who denied that any such threat had been made.

Today, the Kamehameha Schools board of trustees and chief executive Dee Jay Mailer sent a mass e-mail to parents and alumni notifying them of the new legal skirmishing in California and alerting them to this imminent Advertiser report.

"A breach of confidentiality has occurred, and an investigation into the line of responsibility is in process. Legal action as appropriate shall follow," the trustees' e-mail said.

"It is aggravating to be drawn into this complicated and unsavory infighting," the trustees' message continued. "However, we will not allow this latest legal maneuver to distract us from our mission."

Jane and John Doe filed legal papers in California federal court denying any role in the release of the settlement figure by John Goemans, an attorney who used to represent them but who now is involved in a dispute over compensation for his services in the case.

Goemans told The Advertiser in February that he believed the settlement amount should be a matter of public record, given Kamehameha Schools' status as the wealthiest and most influential nonprofit institution in Hawaii.

In a separate civil case now pending in California state court, Goemans was sentenced earlier this month to serve eight days in jail and fined $4,000 for violating a court order to keep the settlement amount secret.

Goemans, 73, is now living in Florida with his sister and said by telephone, "I have zero money, I have serious health issues, and now I've been ordered to serve an eight-day jail sentence in California in the middle of May. I don't know what's going to happen."

The California state case was filed against Goemans by Eric Grant, a Sacramento attorney who litigated the Does' lawsuit from the time it was first filed in Hawaii in 2003 through its settlement in May 2007.