Cases & Developments

Memorandum Opinion granting-in-part and denying-in-part Defendant’s Motion for Summary Judgment. Plaintiff, a former student at Meharry Medical College who was granted testing accommodations for internal Meharry exams related to Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and General Anxiety Disorder, brought failure to accommodate, contract, and negligent misrepresentation claims against the College after it dismissed him following three failed attempts at Step 1 of the United States Medical Licensing Examination. Plaintiff did not request testing accommodations from the National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME) for his first attempt, and he withdrew his requests for his second when he did not allow NBME sufficient processing time and for his third attempt when NBME informed him he needed more recent medical documentation. In permitting his discrimination and contract claims to proceed, the court found the fact that the School had previously permitted other students to attempt the exam a fourth time sufficient to state a prima facie case of discrimination and to raise a question of pretext. In granting summary judgment in favor of the School on his negligent misrepresentation claim, the court held that the alleged misrepresentations were at most statements of the School’s intention to provide reasonable accommodations and its plans to apply a subsequently adopted policy to plaintiff in the future, rather than statements of present or past facts.     

Opinion affirming-in-part and reversing-in-part dismissal and remanding for further proceedings. Plaintiff, a former medical student at Howard University with ADHD and situational phobia related to test-taking anxiety, brought disability discrimination and contract claims against the University after it dismissed him from its medical school for repeatedly failing a required examination. The D.C. Circuit reversed the district court’s dismissal of plaintiff’s failure to accommodate claim, noting that it had subsequently decided in Stafford v. George Washington University that the three-year statute of limitations for personal injuries under D.C. law, rather than a one-year limit, applied to claims under Title VI, in which Congress was similarly silent as to a limitations period. It affirmed dismissal of plaintiff’s contract claim, noting that (1) references to compliance with the Rehabilitation Act and the ADA in the University’s Policies and Procedures Manual were insufficient to obligate the University to do something that was not already otherwise required, and (2) plaintiff had not been expelled prematurely under the terms of the medical school’s Policies & Procedures Manual.