Cases & Developments

Order granting-in-part and denying-in-part Defendant’s Motion to Dismiss. Plaintiff, a former student at Butler University, brought contract and unjust enrichment claims against the University after it investigated him, but found him not responsible for stalking another student. The investigation suffered from issues stemming, in part, from the abrupt departure from the University of the investigator assigned to his case. The court permitted plaintiff to proceed on his contract claim, finding that he had sufficiently alleged that the policies and procedures in the University’s Student Handbook were an implied contract and that the University had departed from its terms by not providing parties with access to investigative materials, not providing adequate notice of changes to the scheduled hearing time, and permitting the hearing to proceed when the decision-maker did not have a copy of the investigative report. It dismissed his unjust enrichment claim, finding plaintiff had erroneously incorporated by reference his allegations of the existence of a valid contract.