Virginia jury finds nursing students were misled

A jury gave $47,000 apiece to 16 nursing students, who sued, claiming that Virginia Western Community College misled them about the loss of national accreditation. The Commonwealth gets to pay the judgment. Three more groups of similarly situated plaintiffs await their turns at trial. A total of 75 such students sued.

More: http://chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/former-nursing-students-awarded-damages-in-lawsuit-against-virginia/34399?sid=pm&utm_source=pm&utm_medium=en

My personal view: we'll be seeing increasing numbers of such suits in higher education as the decade wears on:

So Sue Me!
By Jim Castagnera
Today’s Campus
January 2010
Once upon a time, American higher education stood apart, perhaps even above, the American common law. Witness this 1981 pronouncement by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, sitting in Lower Manhattan: “Institutions of higher education should be given considerable deference in admissions determinations absent proof that its standards and its application of them serve no purpose other than to deny an education to handicapped persons.” (Doe v. New York University, 666 F.2d 761 [1981]) This deference extended to student-dismissal decisions, as well as denials of tenure.
Fast-forward a quarter century and we hear the U.S. District Court for the District of Puerto Rico opining, “The mere fact that a university is involved in a contractual controversy does not suffice to invoke the judicial self-restraint rule; if we did, then, for all practical purposes, we would be favoring a priori one of the contracting parties.” (Otero-Burgos v. Interamerican University, 529 F.Supp.2d 283 [2006])
At the close of the 21st century’s first decade, no one working in our industry dares blithely to intone the old saw, “So sue me!”
One school that certainly isn’t saying that is the University of Pennsylvania. In early October, the media reported, “Exec wins $435k in suit over nonexistent Wharton degree.” Acccording to a published report, “That's the amount the jury awarded Frank Reynolds, a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania's Executive Master's in Technology Management (EMTM) program, last Tuesday. Reynolds filed suit against Penn in 2006 claiming the school misrepresented the EMTM program, which is housed in Penn's School of Engineering and Applied Science, co-sponsored by the Wharton School, and taught by faculty in both Engineering and Wharton.” The plaintiff complained that, after investing a year in what he thought was a dual-degree program, he learned that Wharton would only award him a certificate and that he wouldn’t be deemed an alumnus of the prestigious business school.
Even less likely to be saying, So sue me” is University of Michigan School of Dentistry, against whom an expelled student named Alissa Zwick won a $1.7 million verdict in December. The plaintiff in this case began her dentistry studies back in 2002. Her troubles began a year later, when she performed poorly on exams and claimed to have triuble paying attention in class. A psychiatrist diagnosed attention deficit disorder. Zwick and her clinical faculty disagreed on what might be reasonable accommodations. In May 2004, her continued shortfalls led the Academic Review Board to dismiss her. Zwick appealed and was reinstated.
The plaintiff continued to be plagued with poor grades. In June 2005, a number of faculty wrote uniformly negative letters concerning Zwick’s potential for success in the dental profession. According to court records, “Presented with the faculty evaluations, the board voted to dismiss Plaintiff. Plaintiff was notified on June 20th. Plaintiff appealed the decision and argued her appeal before the Academic Review Board with counsel present on December 8, 2005. The board denied the appeal and again recommended dismissal. Plaintiff appealed that decision to the Executive Committee of the Dental School and argued her appeal before the committee on January 11, 2006. The committee denied the appeal and Plaintiff was dismissed.”
After surviving the university’s motion for a summary dismissal of her case in 2007, Zwick was able to lay her grievances in front of a jury late last year. During the trial, her attorney, Deborah Gordon, elicited this damaging admission from the school’s former dean:
Q You would agree with me that based on Alissa's transcript, there is nothing to support your statement that she had deficits?
A I disagree.
Q Let's look and see what you said at your deposition. Page 89:
Question: So is there anything on her transcript that you can see that would
legitimize your statement that the reason for the decision is past and continuing
clinical performance deficits?
Answer: If this is the only information I have with which this deposition is based, I
would say she has a B in clinical.
Question: So let me just sum this up then. Based on her transcript alone, just alone, you do not see any basis for your statement that she is being dismissed on past and
continuing clinical performance deficits.
Your answer: Just based on that, I can't extract anything other than that she did B
work.
A Okay. I will -- I agree.
Q Correct?
A Yes.
Q She's one of the few students in the D3 level that's ever been dismissed, correct?
A I can't recall who in the past has.
Q Very few, correct?
A Correct.
Q This was very unusual, wasn't it?
A Yes.
Q Alissa told you at that meeting she felt this all stemmed from the Jaarda and Stoffers and Lantz crossing of swords and that Lance had turned against her, didn't she?
A I don't recall.
Q Your Executive Committee never took that factor into account, did it?
A I presume they did. But --
MS. GORDON: Nothing further.