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Law360 (November 6, 2020, 7:15 PM EST) -- The University of San Diego on Thursday was hit with a putative class action from students demanding tuition refunds in light of COVID-19 campus closures, the latest in a growing list of universities to face similar breach of contract suits this year.
USD student Catherine Holden told the California federal court that the university has refused to reimburse students for services it no longer provides during the pandemic. She's looking to represent a class of about 9,100 students.
"While defendants may not bear culpability for the campus closures or the inability to provide any classroom instruction, neither do the enrolled students," Holden said in her complaint.
She continued: "Yet while defendants have used the current COVID-19 shutdown circumstances to excuse their duty to perform fully the obligations of their bargain with their students, defendants continue to demand that all students fully perform their contractual bargain to pay in full all tuition and fees without any reduction for defendants' lack of full performance."
According to the suit, USD shut down all of its campus facilities, discontinued all in-classroom instruction and shifted everything online. Holden said that while those closures are attributable to the pandemic and California's shelter-in-place order, the university has continued holding students liable for full pre-shutdown tuition and fee obligations.
The private university's undergraduate tuition, housing, meal plans and other fees cost each student about $70,000 per academic year, according to its website.
Holden said USD's refusal to reimburse students is "contrary to ordinary tenets of contract law."
"This indefensible breach is saddling wholly innocent students with mounting debt as a result of having to pay tuition and fees for services they are not receiving and facilities and services that are not being provided," she said.
According to the suit, the proposed class includes all students enrolled at a USD campus who paid tuition and mandatory campus and student fees for the spring semester of 2020 and thereafter for classes scheduled for in-person instruction who were ultimately denied that instruction.
In addition to breach of contract, Holden is alleging unjust enrichment and unfair competition. She's seeking unspecified damages, attorney fees and court costs.
Cheryl Kenner, counsel for Holden, said the suit is "seeking justice for all USD students to recover partial refunds of tuition and fees for instruction provided in the form of remote, virtual learning, which students never agreed to when they paid tuition and fees."
"While we agree with USD's decision to transition to remote learning, we do not agree with USD's decision to provide these refunds," Kenner told Law360.
Universities and colleges are facing similar suits all around the country. In late April, students at University of California and California State University schools accused the university systems of withholding campus fee refunds in the wake of COVID-19-related campus closures, lodging a pair of proposed class actions that look to represent a combined 700,000 total students.
Earlier that month, Fordham University Kareem Hassan hit his school with a similar putative class action in New York federal court, claiming students at the institution "lost the benefit of the education for which they paid, without having their tuition and some other fees refunded to them."
Ivy League students have also sued Columbia and Cornell universities. And Michigan State University, Pace University, the University of Miami and Drexel University have also been accused of withholding tuition and fees.
In October, a California federal magistrate judge said during a hearing that she intends to dismiss the suits against the Regents of the University of California, finding the students hadn't overcome the UC Regents' qualified immunity defense.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Sallie Kim expressed sympathy for students seeking campus fee reimbursements amid the COVID-19 pandemic, but said they hadn't shown sufficient precedent to back up their argument that the state-run university's regents and its former president Janet Napolitano lack entitlement to qualified immunity under the 11th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
A USD representative said the school hadn't yet been served the suit on Friday. Counsel for Holden declined to comment beyond the complaint.
Holden is represented by Carney R. Shegerian, Anthony Nguyen and Cheryl A. Kenner of Shegerian & Associates Inc.
Counsel information for the university wasn't immediately available Friday.
The case is Catherine Holden v. University of San Diego et al., case number 3:20-cv-02169, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California.
--Additional reporting by Hannah Albarazi. Editing by Philip Shea.
For a reprint of this article, please contact reprints@law360.com.
