Student cannot sue Pace University over on-line classes during pandemic

Here is another COVID-19 case. This one involves higher education. Plaintiff was a master's degree student at Pace University whose education in the performing arts was disrupted by the pandemic in spring 2020 as the university moved the classes online, prompting plaintiff to sue for breach of contract, unjust enrichment and related state law claims. Plaintiff loses the case.

The case is Goldberg v. Pace University, issued on December 8. After the world shut down in early March 2020 due to the pandemic, Pace suspended in-class instruction for the rest of the spring semester. As we all know, schools and colleges were doing this all over the country. Is there case to be had for any of this? Plaintiff argued that this was a breach of contract because Pace did not refund the tuition over the course of 2.5 years in the Actors Studio program ($90,000). This is because he, like his classmates, was denied in-class instruction.

While colleges have an implied contract with their students to act in good faith, we look to the university's bulletins, circulars and regulations made available to the student to determining whether the college has acted in good faith. The student must show an express promise for certain specified services in the university's relevant materials. He must then show how the defendant breached that promise. Plaintiff loses this claim because Pace's written Emergency Closings provision allocated the risk to students if Pace needed to close due to an unforeseen, emergency circumstance outside of Pace's control. The provision did not allow Pace to completely shut down operations. As such, Pace was within its contractual rights to postpone services for plaintiff and move his classes online on account of the pandemic. The pandemic surely qualifies as such an emergency, the Court of Appeals (Raggi, Carney and Nathan) holds.

This reasoning carries over to plaintiff's other claims. Moving four of his classes to an online format falls within the Emergency Closings provision, and there is no promissory estoppel or unjust enrichment claim stemming from plaintiff's equitable reliance on any of Pace's promises.