On the face of it, this lawsuit appears absurd:
A federal judge has granted class-action status in a lawsuit in which current and former students of the University of Delaware claim the school breached contractual obligations and unjustly enriched itself by halting in-person classes and shutting down the campus in 2020 because of the coronavirus epidemic.
According to the ruling, more than 17,000 undergraduates were enrolled at UD in spring 2020, and the university collected more than $160 million in tuition.
The plaintiffs have argued that, before the pandemic, the school treated in-person and online classes as separate offerings and charged more for some in-person programs than they did for similar online classes. They also noted that the university charged them fees for the gym, student centers, and the health center, sometimes at higher rates than those paid by online students, and that the school kept those fees while denying them the services.
The plaintiffs are seeking partial refunds of their spring 2020 tuition, having earlier agreed to dismiss their claims arising from student fees.
Here’s what the judge wrote:
In his ruling, Bibas rejected UD’s argument that the plaintiffs lacked standing to sue. The university also argued unsuccessfully that it is impossible to know who actually paid tuition because some students may have used outside sources like scholarships.
“Those students, no less than students who paid out of their own pockets, were parties to a contract that U. Delaware allegedly breached,” wrote the judge, who noted that the only students excluded from the class would be those who received full rides. “Because U. Delaware has enough records to figure out which students did not get full rides, there is a reliable way to determine who those students are.”
I’m far from a cheerleader for UD, and I wonder whether some percentage of students who routinely cut class will be factored into whatever equation might ultimately be determined, but it seems ridiculous to me that the University should be held responsible for going virtual during a pandemic.
In fairness, although the judge is a Trump appointee, he issued a strong opinion in this case:
- Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. v. Secretary Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 830 F. App’x 377 (3d Cir. 2020). On November 27, 2020, Bibas authored the opinion in the case that rejected the 2020 Donald Trump presidential campaign‘s attempt to undo the certification of votes in the 2020 United States presidential election in Pennsylvania. Bibas opened his opinion by writing: “Free, fair elections are the lifeblood of our democracy. Charges of unfairness are serious. But calling an election unfair does not make it so. Charges require specific allegations and then proof. We have neither here.” Bibas concluded by stressing that “[v]oters, not lawyers, choose the President” and “[b]allots, not briefs, decide elections.”[30]
Maybe there’s something to this case after all…