A federal judge is allowing to proceed a class-action suit by University of Delaware students against the school for abruptly moving their classes online early in the COVID-19 pandemic, setting a worrisome precedent for other colleges that took similar measures.
The suit seeks damages and restitution from the school.
3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Stephanos Bibas, sitting by designation as a trial judge, knocked down every argument by the university, including that the plaintiffs don’t have standing and a class is not “ascertainable.”
The plaintiffs are claiming breach of implied contract and unjust enrichment.
The students argue that “what they got was worth less than what they paid for” in tuition when in-person classes were banned, Bibas wrote in a Friday ruling. They seek to certify a class of all undergraduates who paid tuition in the spring 2020 semester: at least 9,000 out of 17,000 total students. (Bibas says the university took in $160 million that semester.)
The university clearly caused “injury in fact” by “moving classes online. And I could redress that injury by awarding damages or ordering restitution,” Bibas wrote. The class can be certified because “enrollment and payment are verifiable facts,” and the university can track who paid “some amount of tuition” that semester.
It’s not credible for the university to claim “it is impossible to know who actually paid tuition” because the sought class excludes students with “full rides,” and even students who “paid with money from outside sources … were parties to a contract” it allegedly broke, he said.