Cases & Developments

Memorandum Opinion denying Plaintiffs’ Motion for Class Certification and dismissing the case. Plaintiffs, three students at Liberty University during Spring 2020, on behalf of themselves and a putative class, brought contract and unjust enrichment claims related to fees against the University after it cancelled in-person classes and closed campus facilities due to the coronavirus pandemic. Before addressing the motion for class certification, the court found that plaintiffs’ claims are moot and that plaintiffs lack particularized injury fairly traceable to the University to establish standing because the University voluntarily prorated fees and distributed to the students grants from the CARES Act and HEERF funds in amounts that exceeded their asserted injuries. Turning to the motion for class certification, the court noted that the fees charged to individual students varied widely across the University’s seventeen schools and hundreds of courses with separate individualized fees and that student balances were affected differently by scholarships, grants, and prorated refunds. Accordingly, the court found that plaintiffs’ motion for class certification failed for lack of commonality, typicality, predominance, or superiority.   

Memorandum Order denying Plaintiff’s Motion for Class Certification. Plaintiff, a student at Georgetown University during Spring 2020, on behalf of himself and a putative class, brought contract and unjust enrichment claims against the University related to tuition and fees after it ceased in-person instruction and closed campus facilities due to the coronavirus pandemic. In denying class certification for lack of adequacy, the court found that plaintiff (1) did not meet the high standard of being “able to engage in arm’s-length dealings with the opposing side” because plaintiff’s mother works at the University and (2) lacked incentive to represent the claims of the class vigorously because after his account was adjusted for a CARES Act grant on top of his scholarships and other grants, he actually “did not pay Georgetown a dime.”   

Order granting Plaintiff’s Unopposed Motion for Final Approval of Class Action Settlement. Plaintiffs, a class of 494 students enrolled in the Accelerated Bachelor of Science in Nursing Program at Xavier University in Spring and Summer 2020, brought contract, unjust enrichment, and promissory estoppel claims against the University after it ceased in-person instruction and closed campus facilities due to the coronavirus pandemic. Through the Settlement Agreement, the University agreed to pay $750,000 to be distributed in accordance with the Agreement.  

Order granting Plaintiff’s Motion for Class Certification. Plaintiff, a student at the University of Maine Orono during Spring 2020, on behalf of himself and a putative class, brought contract claims against the University after it ceased in-person instruction and closed campus facilities due to the coronavirus pandemic. In granting plaintiff’s motion, the court certified three classes: (1) the “tuition class” of students “who paid tuition, or on whose behalf tuition was paid, but had their classes and educational services moved to online only learning;” (2) the “system fee class” related to the “Student Activity Fee” and the “Unified Fee” paid to the University of Maine System; and (3) the “Orono Fee Class” related to the “Communications Fee” and “Recreation Center Fee” specific to the campus. In certifying the classes, the court found that common questions predominate. On the issue of contract formation, it found that questions related to common policy, marketing, and other materials predominated over the circumstances of each class member. With respect to the calculation of damages, it found that the question of the difference in the price for on-campus instruction over the lower price of online instruction was predominate, and with respect to fees, the question of whether the University cancelled the particular services for which the fees were charged predominated over individual questions such as which campus students attended or the level of fees paid as it varied by number of credit hours enrolled or undergraduate vs. graduate status.   

Memorandum Opinion and Order denying Defendant’s Motion to Dismiss.  Plaintiff, a student at North Central College in 2020, on behalf of herself and a putative class, brought contract and unjust enrichment claims against the College after it ceased in-person instruction and closed campus facilities due to the coronavirus pandemic.  In permitting plaintiff’s contract claim to proceed, the court held that she had sufficiently alleged an implied promise for in-person instruction and services by citing catalog and website descriptions, a registration process that permitted students to choose in-person or online classes, the College’s customary practice, and an admission letter that referred to a community of “resident students.”  The court also permitted plaintiff’s unjust enrichment claim to proceed, finding that her pleading on that claim incorporated by reference only factual allegations and excluded reference to paragraphs asserting breach of contract.  

Order denying Plaintiffs’ Motion for Class Certification.  Plaintiffs, two students in on-campus degree programs at Grand Canyon University during the Spring 2020 semester, on behalf of themselves and a putative class, brought contract, unjust enrichment, and money had and received claims against the University after it ceased in-person instruction and closed campus facilities due to the coronavirus pandemic.  The court previously dismissed the contract claim related to tuition and certified the class for the contract claims related to housing costs and fees in related litigation.  Though the court found commonality among the unjust enrichment and money had and received claims related to tuition costs, it denied class certification, finding that the common issues do not predominate because plaintiffs failed to show that damages could be determined on a class-wide basis because students (1) paid different amounts of tuition for a range of classes with different expectations for benefits, and (2) received different distributions of CARES Act funds depending upon which criteria they individually met for the assistance.