Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

Posts Tagged ‘schools’

Get a C, File a Lawsuit.

In the Fall 2006 semester, Brian Marquis got a C in his “Problems in Social Thought” class at the University of Massachusetts. Apparently attempting to prove he learned more about the problems than about the solutions, he immediately proceeded to file a federal class action lawsuit alleging that the school, its trustees, his professor, and various deans violated his constitutional right to get an A.

In a rare case of speedy resolution, it took the court just four months from the time the lawsuit was served on the defendants for the court to dismiss the case; that might have had something to do with the fact that Marquis was proceeding pro se, and drafted a semi-grammatical complaint with no legitimate causes of action. (For instance, he listed a racial discrimination statute as one of his causes of action, despite being white and failing to allege that race played any role in the matter.)

Still, that hardly means the suit was cost-free; as one of the defendants put it, “It ended up just wasting a lot of people’s time and money.” Moreover, Marquis says that he’s thinking of appealing. But lest you think that Marquis just had sour grapes, he had a good reason for filing the suit:

Marquis – who salts his comments with “strike that” – acknowledged he was alarmed the C might lower his grade point average and make him less attractive to a law school.

The C has rendered his transcript a “dismal record of non-achievement,” his suit said. Marquis, who enrolled at UMass-Amherst in spring 2006, said he has roughly a B-plus average.

I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that “Has a history of filing lawsuits against his school and his professors” on his résumé isn’t actually going to make him more attractive to a law school. (Although his 2004 lawsuit against his previous school didn’t keep him from being admitted to the University of Massachusetts.)

(h/t Kerr @ Volokh)

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Pro bono as profit center, cont’d

Just so you’re totally clear on the meaning of the term pro bono when you read it from now on:

McMinimee [Seattle Public Schools attorney Shannon McMinimee] says it’s “disingenuous” for the law firm, Davis Wright Tremaine, to go after money when the firm took the case pro bono. But firm spokesman Mark Usellis said “pro bono” means their clients don’t have to pay.

“The thing that’s really important to us in a civil-rights case is that Congress specifically and explicitly wrote into the law that if the government is found to have violated citizens’ civil rights, then the prevailing party should seek fee recovery,” he said.

Most governments can argue, as Seattle Public Schools is, that they don’t have much money. But going after the fees helps deter other government bodies from violating civil rights, Usellis said….

If the firm wins, the fees likely wouldn’t be covered by the district’s insurance carrier, McMinimee said. So the money would have to come out of the district’s $490 million general-fund budget.

(Emily Heffter, “Law firm wants school district to pay $1.8M”, Seattle Times, Sept. 6).

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Yet more on privacy/disability laws and Seung Hui Cho

Perils of privacy laws, as discussed earlier here, here, here and here:

Fairfax County school officials determined that Seung Hui Cho suffered from an anxiety disorder so severe that they put him in special education and devised a plan to help, according to sources familiar with his history, but Virginia Tech was never told of the problem.

The disorder made Cho unable to speak in social settings and was deemed an emotional disability, the sources said. When he stopped getting the help that Fairfax was providing, Cho became even more isolated and suffered severe ridicule during his four years at Virginia Tech, experts suggested. In his senior year, Cho killed 32 students and faculty members and himself in the deadliest shooting by an individual in U.S. history….

Professors and school administrators at Virginia Tech could not have known of Cho’s emotional disability — Fairfax officials were forbidden from telling them. Federal privacy and disability laws prohibit high schools from sharing with colleges private information such as a student’s special education coding or disability, according to high school and college guidance and admissions officials. Those laws also prohibit colleges from asking for such information.

The only way Virginia Tech officials would have known about Cho’s anxiety and selective mutism would have been if Cho or his parents told them about it and asked for accommodations to help him, as he had received in Fairfax….

Although the only way college officials could have known about Cho’s problem would have been from Cho, experts said that asking for help is an almost impossible task for someone with selective mutism.

(Brigid Schulte and Tim Craig, “Unknown to Va. Tech, Cho Had a Disorder”, Washington Post, Aug. 27). More: Hans Bader at CEI’s Open Market (Aug. 27).

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“Felony sexual abuse”

In McMinnville, Ore., it may consist of fanny-patting in school hallways by seventh graders. Following a public outcry, Yamhill County D.A. Bradley Berry has now dropped the felony counts — the resulting status as registered sex offenders might have followed the youngsters through life — but he still wants to have Cory Mashburn and Ryan Cornelison at least given probation on misdemeanor counts. (Scott Michels, “Boys Face Sex Trial for Slapping Girls’ Posteriors”, ABCNews.com, Jul. 24; Mark Steyn, “Swat somebody’s butt, and yours belongs to the D.A.”, Orange County Register, Jul. 28; Jeanine Stice, “Gene’s right about The McMinnville Two”, Salem Statesman-Journal, Jul. 24). Update Aug. 22: charges dropped.

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“Family Of Girl Who Married Teacher Sues School District”

Wilmington, N.C.: “The parents of a 16-year-old girl who recently married a 40-year-old former high school coach have filed a lawsuit against the Brunswick County Board of Education, saying school officials failed to protect their daughter.” According to the school board, administrators at South Brunswick High School “closely monitored and limited” the apparent mentoring relationship between student Windy Hager and track coach Brenton Wuchae “but never found evidence of any romance.” On Jun. 18 Wuchae resigned his position and married Ms. Hager. Superintendent Katie McGee stated the next day that “when dealing with tenured employees, suspicion alone cannot warrant dismissal.” Now parents Dennis (“Bubba”) and Betty Hager are suing the school for not doing more, and “have said they reluctantly signed a consent form allowing their daughter to marry her coach”. (AP/WSOC-TV, Jul. 11; WWAY first and second reports; Brunswick Beacon; Wilmington Star-News; ABCNews.com)(via Above the Law).

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The $2 litigation

Husain v. Springer (2d Cir. 2007): A silly dispute over a university student election results in federal litigation, and a 44-page decision over a suit where the only remedy sought is $2 plus attorneys’ fees; the district court threw it out, but the Second Circuit, in a 2-1 decision, restores part of the case for further litigation. Neither Chief Judge Jacobs nor Professor Bainbridge is impressed, nor is Eugene Volokh, though he takes issue with the tone of the separate opinion, as Judge Jacobs states that he did not read the majority opinion as a waste of time. The concluding paragraph of the Jacobs opinion:

This prolonged litigation has already cost the school a lot of money that could better have been spent to enrich course offerings or expand student day-care. If this case ends with a verdict for plaintiffs (anything is possible with a jury), the district court will have the opportunity to consider whether the exercise merits an award of attorneys’ fees in excess of one-third of two dollars.

The majority opinion itself takes the strange position that a university’s cancelling of student elections in response to a student newspaper’s violation of election rules by using student-activity funds to endorse specific candidates “chills speech” and thus violates the first amendment.

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Next stop for boys’ team-cutting: high schools?

The quota pressures of the federal Title IX law have resulted in the axing of hundreds of men’s college sports teams, and now activists are preparing to intensify their legal campaign at the high school level, reports Jessica Gavora:

At the center of the pro-quota activists’ marching orders for Congress today is something called the “High School Sports Information Collection Act.” It’s modeled after the Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act (EADA), which for a dozen years has forced colleges and universities to annually report their athletic participation and expenses — broken down by sex — to the feds. The EADA was meant to be, and is, a one-stop-shopping list for trial lawyers and activist groups looking for schools to sue for failing to meet the Title IX quota. Now, courtesy of Senators Olympia Snowe and Patty Murray, they are about to have the same litigation hit list of high schools.

In a year in which Rutgers, James Madison, Ohio University, Butler, Clarion, Slippery Rock, and Syracuse have eliminated hundreds of men’s roster spots in full or in part due to Title IX, we have yet to see — thankfully — boys’ high-school teams eliminated under the law. But we are beginning to see boys athletic opportunities be limited due to Title IX quota creep in high schools.

(Jessica Gavora, “Title IX Trickle-Down”, National Review Online/CBSNews.com, Jun. 20)(broken link now fixed).

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Litigation and the D.C. schools

In a hard-hitting series last month, the Washington Post investigated the enduring calamity that is the Washington, D.C. public school system, which persistently ranks at or near the bottom among the nation’s leading cities. (Dan Keating and V. Dion Haynes, “Can D.C. Schools be Fixed?”, Jun. 10; April Witt, “Worn Down by Waves of Change”, Jun. 11)(via Frum). Along with familiar problems of cronyism, mismanagement and undislodgeable incompetents, there is another persistent theme: “Reformers’ lawsuits have backfired, time and again.” For instance:

The activist group Parents United for the D.C. Public Schools tried to force city officials to help the schools in 1992 by suing over fire code violations in dilapidated buildings. Members thought they were helping [Superintendent Franklin L.] Smith by forcing Mayor Marion Barry, the D.C. Council and Congress to pay to rebuild the schools.

Instead, D.C. Superior Court Judge Kaye K. Christian closed schools with fire code violations. The suit dragged on for years. It contributed to the 1996 ouster of Smith, a favorite of Parents United activists. …

“In our wildest imaginings, we never thought this would happen,” Delabian Rice-Thurston, then executive director of Parents United, told The Washington Post the day Smith was fired. “The whole thing — the lawsuit, the court dates — it all backfired. Be careful what you wish for; you might get it.”

And then this, on special ed:

[Former superintendent Arlene] Ackerman balked when she discovered that the school system was paying millions of dollars annually to lawyers representing special education students who had successfully sued for better services. A lawyer sending a short form letter setting up a meeting might bill the schools $450, she said. Ackerman persuaded Congress to cap the amount lawyers could bill the schools at $80 an hour, she said.

Instead of winning plaudits for saving money, “you would have thought that I was responsible for World War III,” Ackerman said. “I started getting pressure — ‘we don’t need to get a cap,’ ‘this is not fair’ — and I mean from all parts of the community. Somebody said to me these were trial lawyers who support certain politicians.”

Ackerman was summoned to meet with [Anthony] Williams, by then the mayor, about raising the cap. She resigned before the meeting took place, and her initiative was soon rolled back, she said. Williams, in a recent interview, conceded that he “might have caved in” to political pressure even though he fundamentally believed Ackerman had been right to limit money spent on lawyer fees that could have gone to classrooms.

Overall, the Post reports, special-ed lawsuits

wound up forcing the system to spend about $120 million a year to pay private tuition for 2,400 students out of a system of 55,000, plus $75 million for special education transportation. That left less money to fix the system’s own inadequate special education programs that sparked the lawsuits in the first place.

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School blamed for lightning fatality

According to witnesses, faculty had stopped a junior varsity football game at Monarch High School in Fort Lauderdale because of thunder and the players were coming off the field when 15-year-old Schaffner Noel was struck and killed by a bolt of lightning. Now his father Julio Noel is suing the Broward County School Board. “The school did not use a lightning detection device and failed to provide sufficient warning and evacuation measures, attorney Holly Krulik said in a statement Tuesday.” (“Fla. Dad Sues Schools In Lightning Death”, AP/Local6.com, Jun. 27). An amusement-park lightning case can be found here, and our readers have been having a lively discussion over the meaning of the word “accident” here.

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Failed an Exam? See You in Court

27-year old former nursing student Nicholas Perrino is suing Columbia University to overturn an “F” he received after missing an exam:

Nicholas Perrino was kicked out of the Ivy League institution’s School of Nursing for missing an exam, and now he is suing to get back in.
…

Perrino is asking a judge to remove the “F” from his transcript, reinstate him at the school and reimburse tuition costs for classes he has already taken.

Presumably, legal action against universities by disgruntled students is fairly common. However, two of Perrino’s statements deserve scrutiny.

First, he claims he “told his instructors” he would be missing the exam. That is far different than getting permission to miss the exam. Had his instructors granted his request, he likely would have said so in the court documents. The more likely scenario is that on the way out the door, he e-mailed his professor to say “sorry, I have an emergency and can’t make the exam,” or something similar.

Secondly, he complains that “it’s not like (he) killed someone.” Actually, there’s a much less compelling case against him had he actually killed someone and not missed the exam. If he ran over someone with his car and the professors flunked him as a result, he may actually have a case. But by missing an exam, he gave them every reason to fail him.

It’s difficult to envision Columbia not having some sort of written policy on unexcused absences for student exams. The fact that Perrino is representing himself may be an indication of how he feels about his chances in court.

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